UNIVEHSJTY  FARM 


LILIA  CHENOWORTH 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

THE  BOOK  OF  SUSAN 

"Lee  Wilson  Dodd  reveals  true  creative  wit 
and  temper  in  a  novel  notable  for  its  high 
standard  of  lucidity,  keen  social  criticism  and 
sheer  diversion." — New  York  Evening  Post. 

"The  conversations  are  brilliant,  the  narra 
tive  so  exciting  you  simply  have  to  keep  on 
reading." — William  Lyon  Phelps  in  the  Yale 
Alumni  Weekly. 

"There  is  nothing  commonplace  in  The  Book 
of  Susan.  Mr.  Dodd  writes  in  a  fresh,  enter 
taining  style." — New  York  Times. 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 


LILIA  CHENOWORTH 


BY 
LEE  WILSON   DODD 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  BOOK  OF  SUSAN,"  ETC. 


'Beauty  is  always  defeated — and  never  defeated" 

— MONDORY 


NEW   YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright,  1922, 
By  E.  P.  Button  &  Company 

All  Rights  Reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED 
STATES  OF  AMERICA 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY 

TO   MY  SISTER 

Dear  Peggy : — 

Since  you,  at  least,  will  find  most  of  me  somewhere  be 
tween  these  pages,  it  is  with  a  secure  sense  of  comradeship 
that  I  offer  them  to  you.  And  may  I  offer  with  them  just  a 
word  of  explanation? 

The  story  of  Lilia  and  of  Dunster  is  not  a  "college  story" 
nor  is  it  a  "romance  of  the  theatre."  If  it  were  a  "college 
story"  the  chapters  neighbored  by  an  entirely  imaginary  col 
lege  for  women  would  be  a  doubtful  gift — because,  in  many 
respects,  untypical  and  incomplete.  They  have  been  sharply 
questioned,  before  publication,  by  pained  graduates,  who  have 
urged  me  either  to  expand  or  expunge  them.  With  perhaps 
characteristic  stubbornness,  I  have  been  unable  to  do  either. 
My  purpose  in  composing  them  as  they  stand  was  purely 
artistic:  they  were  designed  merely  to  introduce  my  principal 
characters  in  a  certain  light  and  with  chosen  effects  of  con 
trast  which  I  still  feel  to  be  legitimate.  Had  I  been  attempt 
ing  a  story  meant  to  illustrate  the  extraordinarily  rich  and 
complex  life  of  our  modern  colleges  for  women  (or,  for  that 
matter,  the  extraordinarily  rich  and  complex  life  of  our  mod 
ern  theatre} ,  other  methods  of  treatment  would  at  once  have 
been  forced  upon  me. 

As  it  happens,  novels  which  fasten  upon  some  urgent, 
immediate  problem,  some  vast  public  institution  or  cause, 
whether  for  social  propaganda  or  satire,  have  never  much 


appealed  to  me.  As  novelist,  the  only  problems  which  interest 
me  are,  first,  the  spiritual  problems  (to  call  them  that)  of 
human  beings  taken  singly,  as  given  individuals;  and,  second, 
such  technical  problems  as  present  themselves,  in  the  course 
of  composition,  to  every  teller  of  tales. 

In  short,  what  I  would  dedicate  to  you — neither  with 
undue  humbleness  nor  undue  pride — is  Lilia  herself,  and 
Dunster,  and  the  three  or  four  accessory  characters  whom  I 
have  ventured  to  create.  They  have  been  quite  as  real  to  me 
for  some  months  as  my  personal  friends:  yet  to  you  and 
others,  I  sometimes  fear,  they  may  well  come  as  but  slight 
and  wavering  shadows.  Nevertheless,  "they"  are  my  book; 
and  it  is  they  and  their  story  which  I  now  inscribe  to  you — 
with  an  old  and  affectionate  admiration. 

L.  W.  D. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

BOOK   I 


THE  girls  of  English  3B — a  division  in  Shake 
speare  of  the  Freshman  class  of  Alden  College 
— had  at  last  settled  into  their  seats;  the  roll  had 
been  called.  The  recitation  was  about  to  begin. 

Young — too-young,  held  Miss  Goldsborough, 
titular  head  of  the  English  Department — Assistant 
Professor  Thorpe  frowned  briefly  at  his  mark- 
book,  then  opened  the  small  red-and-gold  copy  of 
Julius  Casar  before  him. 

"Miss  Chenoworth?"  he  said,  enunciating  crisply 
the  syllables  of  the  name. 

It  was  a  tradition  of  Alden  College  that,  during 
the  hours  of  classwork,  its  students  should  clothe 
themselves  not  only  plainly  but  negligently.  To 
this  tradition  even  the  daintier  girls  more  or  less 
reluctantly  conformed.  But,  in  this  particular  di 
vision,  on  this  particular  morning,  there  sat  —  or 
rather,  drooped — in  the  front  row  a  slender  girl  who 
had  too  evidently  chosen  to  ignore  the  unwritten 
law  against  class-room  titivation.  Her  morning 
toilette,  indeed,  was  the  last  word  in  simple,  but 
wholly  sophisticated  Parisian  elegance  and  charm. 


2  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

It  was  a  study  in  subtle  combinations  of  bluish 
green,  or  greenish  blue,  deliberately  calculated  to 
enforce  the  blue-green  jewel-like  glitter  of  her  eyes 
and  to  set  off  the  flame-like  quality  of  her  artfully 
arranged  hair.  Her  eyebrows  had  almost  certainly 
been  thinned  and  pencilled,  and  nature  could  hardly 
have  been  responsible  for  those  cherry-red  lips  or 
the  even  pallor  of  her  face.  She  was  wearing,  too, 
a  single  jade  ring,  and  delicate  ear-drops  of  the 
stone  called  aquamarine. 

She  had  very  slightly  straightened  herself  in  her 
seat  when  young — too-young — Assistant  Professor 
Thorpe  had  pronounced  her  name.  Her  jewel-like 
eyes  lifted  to  his  with  a  faintly  quizzical  expectancy. 
The  twenty  or  thirty  conforming  girls  on  either 
side  of  her  and  behind  her  exchanged  little  grimaces, 
looks  half-thrilled,  half-mischievous,  and  ambiguous 
smiles. 

It  is  merely  true,  at  this  moment,  that  the  pos 
sibly  too-young  Assistant  Professor  Thorpe  wished 
this  extraordinary  girl  before  him  in  Jericho !  She 
was  out  of  place  in  his  classroom — in  any  class 
room;  out  of  key  with  her  surroundings.  She  dis 
concerted  him,  immeasurably.  He  had  not,  for 
example,  meant  to  call  upon  her  first;  yet  he  had 
called  upon  her  first.  He  had  done  so  because  of 
an  electric  intuition  that  the  class  as  a  whole  was 
again  certain  he  would  not  have  the  courage  to  call 
upon  her  at  all.  Daily  for  a  week  had  he  been  meet 
ing  this  Freshman  division,  and  this  was  the  first 
time  he  had  summoned  Miss  Chenoworth  to  recite. 
It  was,  he  knew,  high  time;  yet,  having  done  it,  he 
despised  himself  for  taking  an  imaginary  dare. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  3 

And  meanwhile,  his  mind  was  wandering;  his 
thoughts  were  confused;  he  could  not  concentrate 
efficiently  on  the  business  in  hand.  .  .  .  Oh  I  con 
found  the  artificial,  exquisite,  troubling  creature! 
He'd  flunk  her  anyway,  if  he  could!  That,  at  least, 
should  prove  an  emotional  catharsis,  bringing  im 
mediate  if  transitory  relief. 

"Will  you  begin  reading,  please,  Miss  Cheno- 
worth?  Act  I,  Scene  2.  We  worked  through,  you 
remember,  that  long  speech  of  Cassius — the  Colos 
sus  speech — yesterday?  Let's  go  right  on,  then, 
— page  twelve — the  speech  of  Brutus.  .  .  ."  He 
paused;  his  throat  was  tight  and  dry;  his  voice  had 
sounded  unnaturally  in  his  ears  and  he  felt  the  class 
must  have  noticed  it.  Slight,  disagreeable  impres 
sions  of  this  kind  too  often  bothered  him  in  his 
work;  the  memory  of  them  would  frequently  return 
at  night  to  harass  him.  "I'm  too  sensitive,  too  tem 
peramental  for  this  job,"  he  reflected,  not  without 
a  glimmer  of  satisfaction.  .  .  .  But  why  didn't  that 
impossible,  disturbing  creature  begin? 

He  forced  himself  to  glance  down  at  her,  sternly. 

Miss  Chenoworth  met  his  glance  and  parried  its 
disapproval  with  a  slight,  expressively  deprecating 
movement  of  her  thin  shoulders.  She  was  not 
embarrassed;  she  was  tactful  with  him,  but  firm. 
"Would  you  mind  very  much,"  she  asked  gently, 
"calling  on  someone  else?  I  can't  jump  into  the 
middle  of  a  scene  like  that  and  do  it  justice;  I  can't, 
really."  Then  she  pouted — and  relaxed,  dismissing 
the  matter  as  she  did  so:  "I  don't  believe  anybody 


can." 


Young — too-young — Assistant  Professor  Thorpe 


4  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

felt  with  anguish  that  a  supreme  crisis  confronted 
him.  A  distinct,  though  unlocated,  giggle  had 
reached  him  and  chilled  his  spine.  If  he  could  not 
at  once  meet  this  situation  and  dominate  it — well, 
the  class  would  get  out  of  hand  and  he  would  never 
be  able  to  regain  their  entire  respect.  He  spoke 
out  sharply.  "I'm  afraid  Miss  Chenoworth  is 
under  a  misapprehension!  This  is  not  a  class  in 
elocution,  Miss  Chenoworth."  The  general  laugh 
that  followed  was  unmistakably  on  his  side.  Thank 
God,  he  had  scored ! 

But  had  he  scored — ?  Miss  Chenoworth  was 
rising,  deliberately — and  very  gracefully;  she  was 
starting  toward  the  door.  ...  Why ! — this  was 
rank  impertinence  and  rebellion!  Should  he  com 
mand  her  to  resume  her  seat — ? 

Meanwhile  Miss  Chenoworth  had  walked,  with 
out  visible  agitation,  from  the  room 

Young  Assistant  Professor  Thorpe's  knuckles 
tapped,  with  decision,  on  his  desk-lid.  "Attention, 
please !"  By  convulsive  repression  he  kept  his  tone 
cold,  infinitely  remote.  "Miss  Gerrish — ?  Be  so 
kind  as  to  begin  with  the  speech  of  Brutus." 

Then  a  dumpy,  olive-skinned  girl  toward  the  back 
of  the  room  peered  intently  at  page  twelve  through 
round,  horn-rimmed  spectacles  and  mumbled  at  the 
following  lines : 

"That  you  do  love  me,  I  am  nothing  jealous; 
What  you  would  work  me  to,  I  have  some  aim : 
How  I  have  thought  of  this  and  of  these  times, 
I  shall  recount  hereafter;  for  this  present, 
I  would  not,  so  with  love  I  might  entreat  you, 
Be  any  further  moved.   ..." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  5 

"One  moment,  Miss  Gerrish,"  said  young  Assist 
ant  Professor  Thorpe;  "stop  there,  please.  Now 
— have  you  any  comment  to  make  on  Shakespeare's 
use  of  the  word  jealous'  in  the  first  line  of  this 
speech?'1 

Ah! — it  was  all  right!  Every  eye  in  the  class 
was  concentrated  upon  the  word  "jealous!"  He 
could  hold  them  now.  As  for  Miss  Chenoworth — 
damn  her !  Well — he  would  unquestionably  have  to 
make  an  example  of  Miss  Chenoworth.  .  .  . 


II 

THE  ruling  hand — steel  gloved  in  silk — in  every 
department  of  life  at  Alden  College  was  the 
hand  of  its  President,  Dr.  Orlando  Harrod.  All  the 
courses  in  English,  for  example,  were  planned  as 
Dr.  Harrod  believed  they  should  be  planned;  yet 
he  never  openly  dictated  to  his  subordinate  officers, 
and  most  of  them  lived  under  the  pleasing  impres 
sion  that  they  were  personally  responsible  for  such 
matters  as  fell  to  their  charge.  Dr.  Harrod,  in 
short,  was  several  degrees  more  learned  and  astute 
than  any  second  member  on  his  Faculty,  and  he 
knew  very  well  how  to  be  completely  autocratic, 
while  seeming  merely  to  be  completely  bored  and 
detached. 

Thus  Amanda  Goldsborough,  Ph.D.  —  titular 
head  of  the  English  Department  at  Alden — still 
believed  herself  to  be  the  one  strong  force  making 
for  beauty,  light,  and  sweet  reasonableness  in  that 
comparatively  ancient  seat  of  learning.  She  gladly 


6  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

admitted  to  a  naturally  autocratic  temper,  and  al 
ways  thought  of  herself — with  due  satisfaction — as 
wielding  a  somewhat  merciless  rod.  Yet  she  was, 
in  reality,  a  rather  soft-hearted  spinster,  far  too 
sentimental  to  be  much  impressed  by  "mere  fact" 
if  the  mere  fact  in  question  proved  less  agreeable  to 
her  than  she  felt  her  conception  of  a  beneficent 
Creator  demanded.  That  young  Assistant  Profes 
sor  Thorpe  had  some  cause  for  complaint,  she  was 
willing  to  concede ;  that  he  had  made  out  a  case  for 
strict  and  summary  discipline  she  was  by  no  means 
prepared  to  grant  him.  But  she  had  heard  him 
with  patience,  and  she  would — did — go  so  far  as 
to  say: 

"Miss  Chenoworth  was  in  the  wrong — quite 
dreadfully  so.  It  is  not  an  offense  to  be  overlooked. 
On  the  other  hand,  she  is  very  young — and  she's 
strange  not  only  to  college  ways,  but  to  our  whole 
American  way  of  life.  I  happen  to  know  she  has 
lived  in  Europe — in  many  parts  of  Europe,  but 
chiefly  in  Italy  and  Paris,  I  believe — for  the  past 
ten  or  twelve  years.  Her  father — you  must  surely 
have  heard  or  guessed,  Mr.  Thorpe? — is  Anson 
Chenoworth." 

"The  dramatist?" 

"Yes.  I  am  not  an  admirer  of  his  plays;  they 
are  either  morbid  or  cynical,  or  both.  But  my  criti 
cal  sense  forces  me  to  recognize  his  talent." 

"I  should  say  so!"  exclaimed  Dunster  Thorpe, 
with  a  sharp,  self-revealing  gust  of  unaffected,  boy 
ish  hero-worship.  "And  I  did  wonder  about  the 
name — it's  so  unusual.  But  I  never  dreamed — !" 
Speech  failed  him.  .  .  .  Was  not  Anson  Chenoh 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  7 

worth  the  god  of  his  most  private  and  sacred  ado 
ration!  Had  he  not  been  scribbling  at  plays — 
striving  in  secret  after  some  far  touch  of  the  racy, 
ironic  Chenoworth  manner — for  lo,  these  many 
years!  (For  three  or  four,  to  be  objectively  pre 
cise.) 

Miss  Goldsborough  noted  and  deprecated  too- 
young  Assistant  Professor  Thorpe's  enthusiasm  for 
so  dubious  a  talent;  she  made  a  mental  reservation 
for  further  reference;  then,  for  the  moment,  she 
seized  upon  the  advantage  his  enthusiasm  gave  her. 
"Anson  Chenoworth's  daughter  has  quite  possibly 
had  a  deplorable  upbringing.  He  is  a  widower, 
I  understand — of  sorts;  and  she  is  an  only  child. 
That  means  a  spoiled  child,  my  dear  Mr.  Thorpe 
— invariably;  you  will  find  it  so."  Miss  Goldsbor 
ough  seldom  failed  to  remind  the  younger  male 
members  of  the  Faculty  that  they  were,  after  all, 
young  men.  She  prided  herself  on  a  hoard  of  gar 
nered  female  wisdom  now  and  forever  beyond 
their  reach.  And  she  concluded  this  little  interview 
with  a  gnomic  gift: 

"The  French  say,  to  understand  all  is  to  forgive 
all.  But  that  is  nihilism,  Mr.  Thorpe ;  it  would  be 
the  end  of  good  manners,  to  say  nothing  of  morality. 
Nevertheless" — and  here  in  mid-flight  she  omitted, 
for  emphasis,  one  beat  of  her  wings — "it  is  well 
to  be  certain  that  one  understands  before  one  at 
tempts  either  to  forgive  or  condemn."  She  rose 
and  stretched  out  her  hand.  "Pray,  for  the  present, 
overlook  Miss  Chenoworth's  unintentional  affront. 
I  shall,  of  course,  speak  to  her — personally.  Good- 
afternoon." 


8  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


III 

"F\UNSTER  THORPE,  although  at  the  beginning 
•*"^  of  his  first  term  as  an  Assistant  Professor,  had, 
as  a  mere  instructor,  been  teaching  English  Liter 
ature  to  the  undergraduate  maidens  of  Alden  for  the 
past  four  years.  He  was  now — in  October,  1913 — 
only  twenty-seven;  yet  the  novelty  of  his  position — 
that  of  youthful  and  romantic-looking  male  teacher 
of  more  or  less  marriageable  females — had  long  since 
worn  away.  For  him,  at  least.  For  the  possibly 
marriageable  females  it  seemed  never,  he  wearily 
reflected,  to  wear  away.  He  was  constantly,  nor 
too  subtly,  made  aware  by  his  classes  that  his  youth, 
his  single  state,  and  his  agreeable  exterior  were 
qualities  which  undergraduate  maidens  could  not  be 
expected  prosaically  to  ignore.  He  remembered 
only  too  easily,  and  always  now  with  psychic  discom 
fort,  that  his  first  year  or  so  at  Alden  had — because 
of  this  undercurrent  of  awareness — keyed  him  up 
to  an  unusual  pitch  of  ambition;  he  disdainfully 
recognized  it  as  the  motive  which  had  redoubled 
his  energy  and  industry — which,  indeed,  had  won 
for  him  his  Assistant  Professorship  at  so  academi 
cally  tender  an  age.  And  he  writhed  again,  as  he 
always  now  writhed  in  spirit  at  any  recollection  of 
those  naive  stirrings  of  calf-like  vanity.  "I  liked 
it."  he  groaned  aloud— "liked  it!  ...  God!" 

It  grows  clear  that  Dunster  Thorpe  was  a  young 
man  not  seldom  moved  to  observe  himself  from  a 
detached  point  of  view — to  see  himself  not  as  other 
men  or  women  might  see  him,  but  as  some  ironic, 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  9 

lynx-eyed  god  or  demon  might, — and  who  invaria 
bly  suffered,  during  these  inhumanly  lucid  intervals, 
from  crawling  agonies  of  self-contempt. 

On  the  evening,  then,  following  his  recorded  in 
terview  with  Miss  Goldsborough,  he  was  alone  in 
his  rooms  suffering  from  a  wickedly  persistent  at 
tack  of  the  blues.  His  two  rooms  and  bath,  by 
deliberate  choice,  occupied  the  entire  ground  floor 
of  a  more  modern  wing  built  on  to  an  ancient  resi 
dence,  which — to  his  joy — was  situated  at  some  dis 
tance  from  the  college  campus.  To  his  added  joy, 
when  he  felt  capable  of  joy,  he  was  the  only  boarder 
in  this  gloomily  dignified  old  mansion,  and  his  land 
lady  treated  him  rather  as  a  favorite  grandson  than 
as  a  "paying  guest."  Very  gentle,  fragile,  antique, 
yet  indomitable,  was  his  landlady,  Mrs.  Sterrett; 
he  admired  her  enormously;  he  had  conceived  a  true 
affection  for  her.  This  affection  was,  he  knew,  re 
turned.  In  short,  nothing  could  suit  him  better  than 
the  situation  of  his  rooms,  or  than  the  large,  deco 
rous  rooms  themselves.  Yet  he  was  suffering  on  this 
evening,  as  he  not  infrequently  suffered,  from  low 
spirits — the  lowest  possible  spirits:  and  it  becomes 
necessary  to  determine  precisely  why. 

Dunster  Thorpe,  on  his  father's  side,  came  of 
unmixed  old-American  stock;  his  family  tree  carried 
him  down  to  and  was  rooted  in  the  iron  soil  of  the 
theocratic  New  Haven  colony.  On  his  mother's 
side  there  was  no  family  tree;  and  always  some 
where  toward  the  back  of  Dunster's  mind  lurked 
the  discomfortable  suspicion  that  perhaps  this  was 
just  as  well.  Both  his  parents  were  dead — had  been 
drowned  in  the  great  spring  flood  of  188-,  when 


10  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

the  yellow  rivers  of  southern  Ohio  revolted,  swirled 
high  above  their  banks,  and  raged  devastatingly 
through  the  villages  and  small,  ugly  cities  they  for 
the  most  part  so  slavishly  and  sluggishly  served. 
Dunster  was  a  baby  in  an  old-fashioned  box-cradle 
on  that  night  of  terror,  which  he  could  not  remem 
ber,  and  which  left  him  a  propertyless  orphan.  His 
own  tiny,  feeble  life  had  been  spared  by  one  of  the 
numerous  and  freakish  miracles  of  the  flood.  In 
his  boat-like  cradle,  he  had  been  carried  safely  on 
its  impassioned  bosom  and  deposited  in  the  branches 
of  an  apple  tree,  some  two  miles  below  his  native 
town,  Vanesburg.  This  apple  tree  was  but  one  of 
hundreds  ranged  in  the  sloping  orchard  of  Sam 
Stoekel's  farm;  and  it  was  Sam  in  person,  sculling 
about  his  drowned  acres  for  treasure  trove,  who 
found  him  and  bore  him  home  to  fat  Elsa,  his  Bava 
rian  peasant-wife.  .  .  . 

But  Dunster  was  seven  or  eight  years  old  before 
he  learned  of  all  this  in  detail  from  the  cautious  and 
pious  lips  of  his  aunt,  Mrs.  Carrick.  She,  as  a  near 
and  prosperous  relative,  had  not  unnaturally  under 
taken  baby  Dunster's  nurture  and  the  later  cure  of 
little-boy  Dunster's  immortal  soul,  bringing  him  up 
with  her  own  five  freckled  tow-heads,  and  doing  her 
Christian  best  to  feel  he  was  not  a  superfluous  re 
sponsibility.  Mrs.  Carrick  had  not  been  on  speak 
ing  terms  with  Dunster's  father — her  own  and  only 
brother — for  three  years  before  the  flood  swept  him 
and  his  young  wife  beyond  all  care  for  the  problems 
and  irritations  of  poverty  and  of  family  and  social 
scorn. 

Neither  from  Aunt  Emily   (Mrs.  Carrick)   nor 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  11 

from  Uncle  John,  her  husband — the  leading  dry- 
goods  merchant  of  Vanesburg — did  Dunster  ever 
receive  a  clear  account  of  the  reasons  for  their 
estrangement  from  his  father  and  mother.  He  gath 
ered,  however,  as  the  years  passed,  that  his  father 
had  been — if  not  precisely  the  family  black-sheep 
— the  ever-rolling  stone  of  a  numerous  and  solidly 
established  clan;  he  had  failed  seemingly  in  more, 
and  more  questionable,  pursuits  than  any  second 
Thorpe  recorded  in  local  annals ;  and,  finally,  he  had 
added  to  all  previous  failures  the  disaster  of  an 
unprecedented  marriage.  The  Thorpes,  in  general, 
were  all  good  Methodists  who  looked  upon — or 
rather,  looked  stiffly  away  from — the  theatre  as  con 
stituting  one  of  the  more  sinister  devices  of  Satan. 
That  Dunster's  father,  Theron,  had  been  for  a  time 
an  "actor"  was  in  itself  a  deep  blot  on  the  family 
'scutcheon;  that — piling  Pelion  on  Ossa — he  should 
spontaneously  induce  the  ingenue  of  a  traveling 
stock  company  to  forsake  her  disreputable  career 
and  become  his  legal  (but  never,  the  Thorpes  held, 
his  reputable)  wife — well,  that,  as  Dunster  was  at 
last  able  to  make  out,  had  proved  an  affront  unfor 
givable,  and  had  led  to  a  thorough,  persistent  wash 
ing  of  harshly  disciplined,  sectarian  hands.  It 
seemed,  nevertheless,  so  far  at  least  as  Dunster 
could  discover,  to  have  been  a  fairly  happy  mar 
riage,  even  if  dogged  by  poverty  and  the  contempt 
of  a  stubbornly  provincial  world.  His  father,  he 
easily  divined,  was  a  being  incapable  of  success  in 
any  business  pursuit;  an  inevitable  misfit,  therefore, 
in  his  hard  little  money-grubbing  Vanesburg  environ 
ment.  His  mother — but  he  could  learn  little  of  his 


12  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

mother;  nothing,  in  fact,  save  a  vague  tradition  of 
her  "prettiness,"  that  he  was  willing  to  believe. 
After  all,  had  she  not  stuck  to  his  father  faithfully 
through  lean  years,  and  had  she  not  borne  him  a 
son!  Rather  an  exceptional  son,  too  (thus,  with 
conviction,  but  very  privately,  Dunster!),  destined 
to  rise  by  his  own  intellectual  effort  into  a  freer, 
more  brilliant,  more  rewarding  world.  He  had 
somewhere  read  that  exceptional  sons  inherited  their 
abilities  directly  from  their  mothers.  He  liked  to 
believe  that.  And  his  mother  had  been  an  actress — 
probably  not  a  good  one,  but  still  an  actress.  One 
couldn't  be  even  a  bad  actress  without  some  stirrings 
of  imagination,  some  traces  of  artistic,  creative 
power.  ...  It  would  be,  he  could  not  but  feel,  a 
poetic  vindication  of  his  mother,  a  sort  of  belated 
triumph  for  her,  in  spite  of  Vanesburg,  if  he 
should  finally  be  able  to  win  through  the  Theatre 
(he  felt  the  capital  imperative) — through  his  Aunt 
Emily's  condemned  and  much-feared  Theatre! — to 
a  splendid  fortune  and  to  universal  renown!  For, 
surely,  it  was  not  for  nothing,  as  he  again  very  pri 
vately  whispered  to  himself,  that  he  had  been  so 
miraculously  saved  in  infancy  from  the  flood.  .  .  . 
He  was  not,  he  believed,  unduly  superstitious;  but 
were  there  not  always  certain  peculiarities,  certain 
signs  and  portents,  connected  with  the  infancy  of 
all  men  destined  to  be  truly  great? 

And  certainly  his  career  had  thus  far  exhibited 
many  preliminary  symptoms  of  predestined  distinc 
tion.  At  public  school  he  had  always  been  head  of 
his  class  and  had  won  all  procurable  prizes — includ 
ing  the  rather  grudging  esteem  of  his  uncle,  John 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  13 

Carrick,  who  possessed  in  full  measure  the  peculiarly 
American  reverence  for  any  form  of  "book-learn- 
ing"  which  he  himself  had  not  been  privileged  to 
attain.  Largely  a  self-made  man,  with  a  brood  of 
dully  average  children,  John  Carrick  had  been 
greatly  impressed  by — and  secretly  not  a  little  jeal 
ous  of — Dunster  Thorpe's  love  of  reading  and  bril 
liant  record  at  school;  and,  being  a  just  man  at  heart, 
he  had  early  wrestled  with  baser  instinct  and  had 
determined  that  Dunster  must  be  granted  every  edu 
cational  facility  which  he  would  so  much  more  gladly 
have  afforded  a  son  of  his  own.  Dunster,  in  short, 
when  not  yet  seventeen,  was  sent  to  Ochiltree  Col 
lege,  a  small  but  thorough  co-educational  Methodist 
establishment  of  southern  Ohio,  where  he  proceeded 
once  more  fully  to  take  advantage  of  what  Aunt 
Emily  invariably  referred  to  as  his  "opportunities." 
It  was  at  Ochiltree  that  his  love  for  "writing"  and 
his  gift  for  "making  verses"  asserted  itself;  and  it 
was  there,  too,  that  he  passed  beyond  further  need 
for  financial  assistance  from  Uncle  John  and  was 
thus,  without  undue  friction,  enabled  to  pursue  a 
career  which  his  uncle  openly  deprecated  (while 
privately  envying)  as  "leading  nowhere." 

Aunt  Emily,  of  course,  had  hoped  Dunster  might 
be  moved  to  become  a  Methodist  minister,  and  had 
shaken  her  head  ominously  over  his  failure  to  rec 
ognize  an  imperative  "call";  Uncle  John,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  have  been  well  satisfied  with  "the 
law,"  and  had  urged  its  more  businesslike  aspects 
upon  him  with  dogged  persistence.  But  Dunster, 
who  felt  this  lower  call  as  little  as  the  higher,  had 
diplomatically  postponed  a  decision.  He  was  doubt- 


14  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

less  an  overwise  youth  for  his  years,  Dunster,  with 
deep-lying  instincts  which  told  him,  (perhaps  too 
surely,  on  which  side  his  bread  was  buttered.  He 
had  always  known  how  to  flatter  Uncle  John  and 
how  to  play  safe  with  Aunt  Emily,  and — though  he 
believed  himself  to  possess  an  unusually  sensitive 
moral  nature — he  was  not  above  practising  many 
little  arts  upon  people  in  a  position  to  help  him,  even 
when  they  were  people  whose  narrow  mental  out 
look  he  contemptuously  despised.  There  would  be 
time  enough,  he  felt,  for  complete  self-assertion 
when  he  could  at  last  safely  (but  he  did  not  so  ex 
press  it)  kick  his  supports  away.  Not  that  he  was 
for  one  moment  ungrateful!  Perish  the  thought! 
He  could  never  be  otherwise  than  grateful  to  Aunt 
Emily  and  Uncle  John.  Still — there  was  a  valuable 
life  to  be  lived,  a  shining  career  to  be  fashioned;  and 
he  hadn't  the  least  intention  of  permitting  lesser 
matters  to  sway  him  from  his  far-seen  course.  It 
was  not  surprising,  then,  but  it  was  fortunate,  that 
he  should  win  at  Ochiltree  an  important  scholarship 
which  enabled  him  to  enter  the  Graduate  School  of 
Harvard  University;  and  there,  within  three  years, 
he  had  achieved  his  coveted  (because  so  practically 
necessary)  Ph.D.  in  "English,"  and  had  obtained 
an  unexpectedly  favorable  appointment  as  instruc 
tor  in  English  Composition  at  Alden  College.  The 
props  and  supporting  ladders  were  no  longer 
requisite;  he  was  solidly  on  his  own  feet  at  twenty- 
three  and  could  draw  a  long  and — be  it  admitted — 
wholly  self-satisfied  breath. 

Life,   he   now   concluded — always   granting  that 
one  had  been  born  with  the  indispensable  brains, — 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  15 

was  after  all  not  too  difficult  a  game;  one  could  go 
in  for  its  larger  prizes  much  as  one  went  in  for  the 
trifling  prizes  at  public  school,  and  one  could  really 
count  upon  winning  them  and  enjoying  them  before 
one  was  either  too  old  or  too  tired  to  care.  For 
Dunster  (now  Dr.  Thorpe)  did  not  long  mean  to 
waste  his  life  as  a  "mere  teacher"  of  English;  that 
was  a  first  step — a  short  step — only!  He  already 
possessed  a  trunk-tray  filled  with  "original  composi 
tions" — verse  and  prose,  but  for  the  most  part  in 
"dialogue"  which  he  hoped  might  prove  "spark 
ling."  It  was  not  the  scholarly  world,  it  was  his 
much-loved  "Theatre" — though  he  had  been  very 
careful  never  even  to  hint  at  this  aspiration  in  Vanes- 
burg — which  was  ultimately  to  crown  him  with  un 
fading  laurel  and,  incidentally,  yet,  as  he  felt,  so  es 
sentially,  to  fill  his  coffers  with  spendable  gold.  For 
Dunster  Thorpe,  schooled  by  all  he  had  learned  or 
guessed  of  his  father's  failures,  hated  above  all  mor 
tal  restrictions  the  restriction  of  poverty.  Riches,  he 
recognized,  and  for  him  that  was  their  final  value, 
meant  freedom:  freedom  to  do  as  one  pleased,  to 
go  when  and  where  one  pleased,  to  be  the  servant 
of  no  man's  or  woman's  whim  or  importunity  or 
will.  .  .  .  To  be  ruled  by  another:  that  Dunster 
had  felt,  even  from  childhood,  was  to  live  in  hell. 
Yet — and  again,  even  as  a  child — he  had  ever  known 
enough  not  to  rebel  when  rebellion  could  not  serve 
him.  .  .  .  He  was  a  singularly  prudent  youth. 

It  was  due  largely  to  his  prudence,  though  in 
part  to  his  popularity  as  a  teacher,  that  during  his 
first  years  at  Alden  he  was  able  to  convince  Dr.  Or 
lando  Harrod  of  a  great  singleness  of  purpose — 


16  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

the  attainment  of  academic  distinction.  He  contin 
ued  his  experiments  in  verse  making  and  play  writing 
as  he  could,  but  always  in  secret,  exhibiting  to  no 
one  the  tentative  results  of  his  labors.  Secretiveness 
as  to  his  deeper  thoughts  and  private  aims  became, 
indeed,  in  those  years,  a  vice  of  his  nature.  He 
made  acquaintances  easily  and  was  in  general  well 
liked  by  them;  but  he  made — with  one  rather  spe 
cial  exception,  Mrs.  Sterrett — no  lasting  friends. 
For  one  thing,  he  had  thus  far  found  no  one  at  Al- 
den,  of  either  sex,  below  the  rank  of  its  President, 
who  seemed  to  him  his  mental  equal;  and,  apart 
from  difference  in  years,  it  was  impossible  to  make 
a  friend  of  Dr.  Harrod,  whose  secretiveness  and 
prudence  were  more  fully  developed  and  confirmed 
than  his  own.  It  was  not,  however,  a  cheap  vanity 
by  which,  in  those  first  years  of  teaching,  Dunster 
suffered  himself  to  be  misled.  He  gave  to  the  world, 
rather,  an  impression — not  wholly  false — of  likable 
modesty.  The  psychic  plague  upon  him  was  a  far 
subtler  and  more  sinister  disease.  He  was  eaten  up 
by  a  spiritual  arrogance  which  was  due,  partly,  to 
his  realization  of  slowly  developing  but  unrecog 
nized  powers,  partly  to  the  fact  that  his  contacts 
were  so  largely  with  persons  in  reality  his  mental 
inferiors.  He  was  too  often  forced  diplomatically 
to  serve  where  he  knew  that  he  must  one  day  rule. 
And — though  he  guessed  it  not — it  would  be  many 
years  yet  before  life  threw  him  into  a  final  field  of 
competition,  where  the  winning  of  rare  and  supreme 
prizes  lies  beyond  the  reach  of  any  talent  not  rare, 
ten  times  re-tested,  and  supreme. 

His  persistent  blues,  then,  on  the  the  evening  in 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  17 

question,  were  caused  not  so  much  by  one  major 
grief  as  by  the  cumulative  effect  of  many  minor  irri 
tations.  He  was  getting  on,  certainly;  his  assist 
ant  professorship  attested  that;  but  he  was  not  as 
yet  even  beginning  to  get  on  in  the  right  direction. 
And,  after  all,  what  was  an  assistant  professorship 
as  the  world  counts  success?  The  salary  was  ade 
quate  for  a  bachelor  in  a  small  town,  if  he  didn't 
go  in  for  too  expensive  trips  abroad  during  vaca 
tions,  or  too  freely  indulge  his  deliberately  acquired 
and  thoughtfully  cultivated  tastes  for  "first  edi 
tion,"  Japanese  prints,  etchings  by  Whistler,  ori 
ental  prayer-rugs  and  saddle-bags,  and  the  like. 
That  is  to  say,  it  was  adequate  for  a  bachelor  in  a 
small  town  if  he  were  willing  to  live  on  a  restricted 
scale.  But  Dunster  well  knew  that  his  conception  of 
what  he  should  be  able  to  make  of  his  "opportuni 
ties'* — to  quote  poor  Aunt  Emily — did  not  anywhere 
include  living  on  a  restricted  scale.  It  was  not  that 
he  longed  for  enormous  wealth  or  desired  in  any 
sense  to  splurge ;  but  he  could  not  with  patience  con 
template  being  tied  to  a  stake  in  a  provincial  lane 
of  life  when  his  nature  demanded  for  its  full  ex 
pressiveness  complete  freedom  to  range  at  will  along 
the  more  sophisticated  avenues,  highways  and  park- 
like  squares  of  the  world.  In  short,  an  academic  ca 
reer  must  always  hold  him  more  or  less  by  the  heels 
— unless  he  were  to  marry,  with  calculation,  a  rich 
wife ;  and  even  that,  as  he  saw  clearly,  might  prove 
in  the  end  a  losing  exchange  of  servitudes.  It  was 
a  way  out,  at  least,  whose  existence  he  recognized, 
but  which  he  felt  it  beneath  him  to  contemplate. 
Thus,  for  his  own  conscience,  he  dismissed  it.  Yet 


18  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

it  is  just  possible  the  dismissal  was  due  not  so  much 
to  his  feeling  the  step  beneath  him,  as  to  his  feel 
ing  it  a  mere  pis  alter — which,  under  certain  cir 
cumstances,  might  even  prove  a  silly  descent  from  a 
comparatively  cool  frying-pan  into  a  central  hell  of 
fire.  No ;  if  he  were  ever  to  be  free  it  would  be  be 
cause  he  had  spun  from  his  own  substance  the  price 
of  freedom.  .  .  .  But  could  he  do  it,  after  all? 

He  was  not,  seated  there  in  his  pleasant  sitting- 
room,  precisely  doubting  himself,  but  he  had  begun 
of  late,  now  and  again,  to  toy  dreadfully  with  the 
possibility  of  such  a  doubt.  .  .  .  He  was  twenty- 
seven,  approaching  twenty-eight;  the  years  from 
thirty  to  forty  should  prove  his  best.  If  he  now 
gave  himself  until  thirty-five — well,  that  was  a  scant 
seven  years!  Could  he  arrive  at  his  far-seen  goal 
by  then  ?  Could  he,  indeed,  ever  arrive  there  ?  Thus 
far,  he  admitted,  an  extraordinary  luck  had  held  for 
him,  unwaveringly — but  wasn't  that  now  in  itself  a 
danger-point?  Worldly  success,  he  reasoned,  was, 
on  a  final  analysis,  always  the  product  of  a  given  tal 
ent,  plus  a  grim  will  to  achieve,  plus — and  here  the 
grimmest  were  often  helpless — some  favoring,  happy 
turn  of  the  Great  Impartial  Wheel.  There  was  a 
point  beyond  which  all  men  were  puppets,  subject 
wholly  to  Chance.  Fate  had  favored  him,  hitherto 
— but  she  was  notoriously  a  goddess  indifferent  to 
praise  or  prayer.  He  caught  cold  too  easily,  for 
example.  .  .  .  Suppose,  suddenly,  just  when  he 
needed  most  his  full  endurance — ?  Dunster 
coughed,  tentatively,  once;  then  rose  from  his  chair 
with  a  shrug  of  annoyance  at  this  touch  of  folly.  He 
was  sound  as  a  dollar.  If  anything  held  him  back, 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  19 

it  wouldn't  be  his  health ! — What  was  it,  then,  that 
he  really  feared? 

For  Dunster  was  fully  aware  that  night  that  he 
feared  something;  was  suddenly,  unaccountably, 
afraid.  .  .  .  But  of  what — in  heaven's  name,  of 
what?  Nothing  had  changed.  .  .  . 

He  went  into  his  bedroom,  removed  the  green 
denim  coverlet  concealing  his  trunk,  unlocked  and 
opened  the  lid,  and  removed  the  upper  tray.  It  was 
in  the  shallow  middle  tray  that  he  kept  his  manu 
scripts.  He  guarded  them  jealously,  yet  he  was  cu 
riously  clear-sighted  about  them,  too,  regarding  them 
merely  as  so  much  ground  broken  and  harrowed  for 
present  sowings  and  later  magnificent  harvestings. 
But  now,  this  very  night,  as  he  imperiously  felt,  the 
hours  of  preparation  were  over.  It  was  time  to  cast 
in  the  sifted  seed  of  experience  and  to  tend  the 
growth  of  a  merchantable  crop.  And  he  wondered 
he  could  not  feel  both  supremely  ready  and  elated 
by  the  prospect  of  all  that  such  readiness  should  nor 
mally  have  implied. 

Well,  the  great  thing  to  be  done,  the  essential 
thing,  was  of  course  a  play — an  actable,  an  irresisti 
ble  play ! 

He  was  certain  that  what  old  Ibsen  had  called  the 
"foreworks"  for  such  a  play  were  filed  there  ser- 
viceably  to  his  hand.  It  remained  only  to  select ;  then 
to  concentrate  and  make  perfect.  To  begin  with  a 
comedy,  he  had  long  since  decided,  would  be  advis 
able — with  not  too  light-waisted  a  comedy.  Uncul 
tured  New  York  managers  catering  to  an  uncultured 
public,  he  had  made  out,  frowned  on  unhappy  end 
ings;  and,  after  all,  he  reasoned,  to  catch  numberless 


20  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

flies  one  must  not  shrink  from  spreading  one's  honey 
rather  thickly.  .  .  .  Yes;  if  honey  were  needed  he 
would  provide  it  generously,  and  give  it  perhaps  a 
special  flavor — the  true  "Dunster  Thorpe"  tang! 
For  that  was  all-important,  too!  He  must  not — 
even  if  stooping  a  little  to  conquer — begin  with  a 
play  which  any  practised  but  commonplace  dramatic 
craftsman  might  equally  well  have  constructed  and 
signed.  He  must  make  the  "thing  done"  count  not 
merely  for  popularity  but  for  permanence  of  effect. 
True,  he  must  step  forth  beguilingly,  yet  very  firmly 
and  definitely  as  himself.  Oh,  he  knew  so  well — too 
well,  perhaps — what  he  must  do !  He  had  calculated 
it  to  a  hair's  breadth  so  many  times.  .  .  . 

Dunster  bent  over  the  trunk-tray  with  quiet  hands, 
almost  in  an  attitude  of  silent  prayer.  He  was  not 
praying,  however.  There  was  a  stiff  little  frown — 
two  sharp,  black  pen-strokes  —  between  his  dark, 
finely  intelligent,  but  rather  close-set  eyes.  Had  an 
observer  been  present,  something  poised  and  hawk 
like,  and  ruthlessly  intent,  must  have  struck  him  in 
the  set  of  Dunster's  head  between  his  stooped  shoul 
ders,  in  the  immobility,  too,  of  his  pale  and  somehow 
romantically  foreign-looking  face.  In  another  cos 
tume  he  might,  for  the  moment,  have  been  a  mon- 
stgnore  of  the  Cinquecento  bending  to  examine 
minutely  some  stained  Etruscan  coin  or  carved 
Grecian  gem.  Thus  briefly  he  stood ;  then,  with  de 
cision,  chose  out  three  neatly  labeled  folders  con 
taining  manuscript — the  very  "fore works"  for  pos 
sible  masterpieces  mentioned  above — and  carried 
them  back  to  the  table-desk  in  his  sitting-room;  his 
"study,"  as  he  preferred  to  call  it.  And  there,  mo- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  21 

tionless,  for  one,  two,  three  hours  he  read  and  pon 
dered.  .  .  .  Then,  almost  angrily,  he  pushed  the 
manuscripts  aside  and  sprang  up,  with  just  an  impa 
tient  glance  toward  the  small  brass  traveling-clock  on 
the  mantelshelf.  It  was  past  eleven.  His  temples 
burned  and  throbbed;  his  feet  were  almost  numb 
with  cold.  And,  after  all,  it  had  proved  a  wasted 
evening;  he  could  not  go  forward — he  had  not  been 
able  to  fix  finally  upon  the  inevitable  subject,  the  pre 
destined  scheme.  .  .  .  But  it  would  not  do  to  press 
matters;  no  mistake  now  must  be  made. 
!  It  would  be  useless,  he  knew,  to  go  straight  to  bed, 
with  any  hope  at  least  of  finding  there  an  immediate 
oblivion.  He  must  first  coax  the  hot  blood  from  his 
brain;  take  a  brief  brisk  walk,  and  follow  it  by  a 
tranquilizing  bath.  Dunster  seldom  used  the  front 
door  of  Mrs.  Sterrett's  house,  for,  from  the  rear 
room  of  his  little  suite,  his  bedroom,  a  door  led  di 
rectly  by  a  flight  of  three  steps  into  Mrs.  Sterrett's 
lovingly  tended  perennial  garden.  There  had  been 
as  yet  no  black  frost  to  scythe  down  even  the  hardiest 
plants  with  its  clean,  final  stroke ;  it  must  come  soon 
in  this  latitude;  but  thus  far  October  had  been  un- 
wontedly  mild,  and  Mrs.  Sterrett's  trim  borders 
were  still  gay  with  the  whites  and  old  golds  and  apri 
cots  of  her  hardy  chrysanthemums.  Stepping  down 
into  this  garden,  Dunster  now  halted  a  moment  to 
inhale  the  aromatic  pungency  of  chrysanthemum  fo 
liage,  while  his  eyes  accustomed  themselves  to  the 
i  darkness.  It  was  an  exceptionally  dark  night,  he 
discovered;  almost  warm,  windless,  with  a  fine, 
stealthy  drizzle  sifting  through  it.  He  could  catch 
at  last  only  a  ghost's  gleam  from  the  purest  white 


22  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

blossoms;  yet  he  followed  the  narrow  brick  walk 
leading  round  to  the  front  of  the  house  with  all  the 
unconscious  confidence  of  long  habit,  and  his  hand 
went  of  itself  to  the  latch  of  the  entrance  gate.  At 
the  first  corner,  and  once  more  steered  by  habit,  he 
turned  up  Ashmun  Street,  one  of  the  more  retired 
streets  of  the  village.  Ashmun  Street  was  the  first 
leg,  to  put  it  so,  in  his  daily  twelve-minute  walk  to 
the  hill-top  campus  of  Alden;  and,  being  a  humble 
thoroughfare,  in  all  its  length  there  were  just  two 
street  lamps,  whose  feeble  illuminations  served 
merely  to  indicate  their  own  positions  and  so,  pos 
sibly,  to  prevent  unwary  pedestrians  from  dashing 
against  them. 

Striding  rapidly,  Dunster  had  passed  the  first  of 
these  lamps  and  was  gaining  upon  the  second  when 
his  ear  detected  the  sound  of  light,  distant  footfalls 
hurrying  on  down  the  steep  street  toward  him.  They 
met  just  within  the  dull  glimmer  of  the  second  lamp, 
Dunster,  and  a  girl  wearing  a  long  waterproof  cape 
with  the  hood  thrown  up  over  her  hair.  She  tried 
to  slip  by  him,  but  for  once  the  second  lamp  had 
revealed  something — had  betrayed  her. 

"Why — Miss  Chenoworth!"  he  exclaimed. 

It  was  long  after  hours  for  one  of  the  undergrad 
uate  maidens  to  be  on  the  streets  alone. 

"Oh  .  .  .  how  unlucky  that  I  should  run  into 
you!"  came  the  girPs  unhurried  response.  "I 
thought  I  should  be  safe  in  this  quarter  of  town." 

"I  happen  to  live  in  this  quarter  of  town,"  said 
Dunster. 

"To  be  away  from  us?"  she  asked.  "I  envy 
you." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  23 

Dunster  knew  it  was  his  first  imperative  duty  to 
reprove  her,  to  point  out  to  her  that  she  was  break 
ing  a  strict  rule  of  the  college;  he  must  then  conduct 
her  home  in  disgrace.  But,  for  the  moment,  curi 
osity  restrained  him. 

"Why  do  you  envy  me,  Miss  Chenoworth?" 

"You're  at  least  free,"  she  said.  "And  I've  al 
ways  been,  up  to  now — always.  Rules  and  regula 
tions — ah,  voyonsf  I  know  nothing  of  such  things. 
.  .  .  How  stupid  they  are !  How  they  irritate  me !" 

"Then  why  are  you  here — at  Alden,  I  mean? 
After  all  .  .  ." 

"Yes;  I  know,"  the  girl  assented.  "One  must  be 
a  Roman  in  Rome.  That's  what  father  said;  and 
poor  father  wanted  me  so  to  come.  But,  for  all 
that,  I'm  not  certain  I  shall  stay.  I'm  turning  it 
over.  That's  really  why  I  slipped  out  to-night,  don't 
you  see? — just  to  turn  it  over." 

"Ah— I  see." 

"But  I  wonder  if  you  dol  .  .  .  Miss  Goldsbor- 
ough  lectured  me  to-night,  after  supper;  she  said  you 
were  very  much  displeased  with  me — because  of  this 
morning.  She  said  you  at  first  felt — till  she  ex 
plained  about  me — that  I  ought  to  be  severely  dis 
ciplined;  made  an  example  of!  .  .  .  Are  you  really 
like  that?  If  you  are,  I  suppose  I'm  in  for  it  now 
— beautifully!  .  .  .  Not  that  I  shall  much  mind  if 
I'm  sent  away.  I  hate  deciding  such  things,  and  it 
would  save  me  the  trouble,  wouldn't  it?" 

Again  Dunster  Thorpe  was  afflicted,  in  this  slight 
girl's  presence,  with  a  painful  irresolution.  "Your 
father,"  he  rather  muttered  than  spoke  out,  and  his 
manner  was  for  him  almost  humble,  "is  one  of  my 


24  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

highest  admirations.  If  you  envy  me  my  freedom 
(but  that's  rather  a  joke,  you  know,  my  'freedom'), 
I  envy  you  the  privilege  of  having  such  a  father !" 

"He  doesn't  shock  you?"  asked  Lilia  Chenoworth. 
"He  does  Miss  Goldsborough ;  I  could  feel  it.  She 
thinks  him  cynical,  you  know — his  plays!  Fancy 
anyone  thinking  dear  old  father  cynical!  If  there's 
anything  shocking  about  him,  it  certainly  isn't  his 
plays.  Father's  simply  the  most  sentimental  darling 
in  the  world.  That's  why  he  was  so  eager  to  be  rid 
of  me — for  the  next  few  years,  I  mean.  It's  be 
cause  his  moral  brakes  always  slip  when  he  needs 
them  most;  and  he's  learned  to  know  that.  So  have 
I.  But  at  bottom,  you  see,  he's  so  dreadfully  con 
scientious — poor  old  father!  He's  convinced  him 
self  that  he  isn't,  just  now,  a  wholesome  influence  in 
my  life.  .  .  .  Well;  it's  quite  possible  he  may  be 
right,"  she  added,  quaintly.  "That's  one  of  the 
things  I'm  still  turning  over." 

What  Dunster  Thorpe,  for  the  moment,  in  his 
great  confusion  of  mind,  was  chiefly  aware  of  was 
that  nobody  in  Vanesburg  had  ever  conceived  the 
possibility  of  discussing  a  parent  so  frankly,  with  a 
comparative  stranger.  It  jarred  on  him,  too;  it  out 
raged  what  he  was  pleased  to  regard  as  his  moral 
sensibilities.  It  was  incredible,  he  assured  himself, 
with  how  true  an  instinct  he  had  from  the  first  dis 
liked,  distrusted,  this  amazing  young  creature.  Even 
her  prettiness  was  factitious — deliberately  artful.  If 
she  wasn't  exactly  what  his  students,  who  were 
all  ardent  followers  of  the  films,  now  invariably 
called  a  "vamp,"  she  must,  he  felt,  be  taking  her 
first  tentative  steps  toward  that  bad  eminence.  Why, 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  25 

then,  should  he  not  immediately  let  her  feel,  at  one 
and  the  same  stroke,  his  superior  sagacity  and  his 
superior  contempt  1 

"I  advise  you  first,"  he  said,  with  an  exaggerated 
hardening  of  tone,  "to  'turn  over*  the  consequences 
of  deliberately  ignoring  the  rules  of  this  institution. 
I  shall  keep  this  present  infraction  to  myself;  but  I 
feel  bound  to  warn  you  that,  if  you  are  unwilling  to 
become  one  of  us,  conform  to  our  ways,  you  would 
much  better  leave  us  at  once  and  avoid  the  indignity 
of  public  expulsion." 

It  infuriated  him  to  note  that  Miss  Chenoworth's 
lips  were  twitching,  not  from  apprehension,  but  from 
a  supreme  effort  to  suppress  any  greater  sign  of 
mirth  than  a  passing  smile.  He  broke  out  against 
her.  "In  fact,  I  strongly  advise  you  to  leave  us,  Miss 
Chenoworth!  I  have  a  feeling  you  will  add  very 
little  to  the  morale  of  Aldenl" 

"Yes;  I  am  turning  that  over  as  well,"  said  Miss 
Chenoworth.  "And  now,  is  it  part  of  your  duty  to 
conduct  me  back  to  prison?  Or  may  I  slip  in  as  I 
slipped  out — through  the  back  window  of  our  study? 
I'm  in  Apsley  Hall,  you  know." 

"Two  floors  from  the  ground!  Great  heav 
ens 1" 

"How  much  better  if  I'd  fallen,  you  mean,  and 
eliminated  my  pernicious  influence  on  Alden  once  for 
all?" 

"Nothing  was  farther  .  .  ." 

"Thank  you,"  she  serenely  interrupted.  "But  it's 
quite  safe,  Professor  Thorpe.  There's  a  fire-escape 
— and  an  apple  tree.  I  can  manage  perfectly,  if 
you'll  trust  me.  I  can  climb  like  a  cat." 


26  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"Like  a  cat,"  he  echoed,  oddly.  "I've  no  doubt 
you  can." 

"Well—?"  she  prompted. 

"Well,"  he  hesitated— "for  once.  .  .  .  Still— 
you're  forcing  me,  you  see,  into  a  false  position.  I'm 
party  now  to  your  crime." 

"Oh,"  she  protested— "crime !"  Then  she  briefly 
and  gently  laughed  out  at  him.  "As  I  shan't  tell  on 
you,  Professor  Thorpe,  you're  quite  safe."  And 
with  that  she  flitted  from  him  into  surrounding  night. 
He  heard  the  light  pit-pat  of  her  feet  receding — 
receding.  Silence,  then.  He  was  drenched  with  the 
close,  still  drizzle ;  he  felt  as  if  the  fog  were  crowding 
into  him  through  his  clothing,  through  every  pore 
of  his  body.  ...  It  must  be  near  now  to  midnight. 
A  penetrating  chill  had  crept  into  the  air.  He  would 
quite  probably  catch  cold;  he  caught  cold  so  easily 
— too  easily!  .  .  .  And,  at  last,  he  coughed  experi 
mentally,  just  once ;  then — with  a  harsh  groan  for  all 
his  follies  of  commission  and  omission — turned  on 
his  heel  and  strode  furiously  back  to  his  rooms. 


IV 

MISS  GOLDSBOROUGH  was  informally  "at 
home"  to  the  Faculty  and  students  of  Alden 
College  every  Wednesday  afternoon  from  four- 
thirty  to  five  forty-five.  She  had  a  large,  sunny  cor 
ner  room  in  Apsley  Hall  which  she  had  cleverly 
furnished  as  a  combination  of  intimate  salon  and  pri 
vate  library.  "Goldy's  teas,"  in  short,  had  become 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  27 

a  part  of  the  sacred  Alden  tradition;  and  while,  os 
tensibly,  any  student  of  Alden  might  drop  in  to  them 
for  a  cup  of  real  Orange  Pekoe  and  some  of  Goldy's 
delicious  little  sandwiches  and  cakes,  undergraduate 
"custom"  had  gradually  excluded  from  this  privi 
lege  all  members  of  the  Freshman  and  Sophomore 
classes — and  even  the  Juniors,  unless  unquestionably 
"prominent"  in  their  class,  felt  an  increasing  hesi 
tancy  in  presenting  themselves  at  Goldy's  door. 
Moreover,  even  among  the  Seniors,  unless  one  had 
become  established  in  a  position  of  open  favoritism 
— for  there  were  always  two  or  three  of  the  more 
brilliant,  if  also  socially  eligible,  Seniors  whom 
Goldy  chose  to  distinguish  by  marked  attentions 
— it  was  not  at  all  the  thing  to  attend  Goldy's  teas 
too  frequently;  three  or  four  visits  during  the  col 
lege  year  were  felt  to  be  about  the  proper,  because 
customary,  number.  As  for  the  girls  who  did  drop 
in,  they  naturally  wore  their  prettiest  frocks  and  put 
their  very  best  feet  forward,  since  a  sprinkling  of 
the  younger  men  of  the  Faculty  was  always  present 
to  lend  a  certain  needed  stimulus  to  any  exhibition 
of  beauty,  or  wit,  or  "that  damned  charm"  which 
Barrie's  heroines  all  possess,  and  which  Barrie,  there 
fore,  has  been  able  perfectly  to  name.  Except  for 
Goldy  herself,  the  older  professors  of  Alden,  male 
or  female,  were  chiefly  conspicuous  by  their  absence. 
It  was  almost  with  horror,  then — for  the  unwrit 
ten  community  mores  at  Alden,  as  elsewhere,  are  the 
only  laws  regarded  quite  seriously — that  Nannie 
Elkus,  president  of  the  Senior  class,  who  was  grace 
fully  raising  a  teacup  to  her  lips  for  a  first  delicate 
sip,  and  who  happened  to  be  facing  Miss  Goldsbor- 


28  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

ough's  invitingly  open  door,  saw  a  breath-taking 
vision  appear  in  the  outer  hall  and  float  serenely  for 
ward  into  the  sacred  presence.  It  was  Goldy's  first 
"at  home"  of  the  opening  semester,  and  only  those 
girls  who  were  most  confident  of  their  position  in 
the  college  world  had  ventured  to  appear.  Yet  here 
was  a  young  sprig  of  a  thing — an  unknown  Fresh 
man — for  she  must  be  a  Freshman! — coming  for 
ward.  And  such  a  Freshman!  Nannie  Elkus,  an 
adept,  had  never  seen  anything  quite  so  stunningly 
divine  as  that  Nile-green  chiffon-velvet  —  never! 
She  made  out,  with  a  private  pang,  the  immensely 
artful  simplicity  of  its  total  effect,  even  while  the 
insolent  impropriety  of  there  being,  under  the  cir 
cumstances,  any  effect  whatever,  stirred  and  clouded 
the  very  springs  of  her  seniorial  and  presidential 
conscience.  "Pardon  me,"  she  just  dropped  at  the 
nose-bridge  of  Mr.  Gurney,  junior  instructor  in 
Economics,  and  her  momentary  vis-a-vis;  then  she 
moved  with  all  the  majestic  energy  of  her  Juno-like 
figure  and  acknowledged  supremacy  to  meet  and 
crush  the  intruder. 

There  was  a  stir  throughout  the  room  and  more 
than  one  thrilled  intake  of  breath  as  she  swept  for 
ward.  But  Goldy  was  actually  shaking  hands  with 
the  intruder  when  they  met.  .  .  .  And  there  could 
be  no  mistaking  the  professional  graciousness  of 
Goldy's  manner  or  smile. 

"Oh,  Nannie  dear,"  said  Goldy,  seizing  the  first 
word,  "this  is  Lilia  Chenoworth — daughter,  you 
know,  of  Anson  Chenoworth,  the  famous  dramatist. 
I  particularly  asked  Lilia  to  come  to-day  because  I 
so  wanted  her  to  meet  you.  Lilia  knows  little  of  col- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  29 

lege  life — she  isn't  quite  one  of  us  yet,  I  think;  and 
I  felt  you  could  do  more  to  help  her  understand  us 
— all  our  special  points  of  view  and  little  intimate 
ways — than  any  second  girl  on  the  campus." 
Throughout  this  wholly  unexpected  speech  she  had 
retained  Lilia's  hand;  now  she  physically  passed  it 
on  to  Nannie  Elkus,  whose  brown,  athletic  paw 
(gloves  being  barred  at  Goldy's  teas)  received  the 
slight,  white,  kid-sheathed  object  doubtfully,  as  if 
she  had  been  dared  to  hold  and  examine  some  faintly 
venomous  or  creepily  unpleasant  natural  curiosity — 
say,  a  specimen  of  Monotropa  uniflora,  the  parasitic 
corpse-plant  or  Indian  pipe. 

aMiss  Elkus,"  continued  Goldy,  still  beaming  pro 
fessionally  upon  Lilia,  "is  one  of  my  stand-bys  .  .  . 
and  president  of  the  Senior  class !  Now  I  shall  sim 
ply  leave  you  together,  while  I  pour  you  a  cup  of 
tea.  You  take  lemon,  of  course?" 

"No;  cream,  please,"  answered  Lilia  distinctly, 
all  eyes  now  upon  her,  but  entirely  unfluttered  by 
their  scrutiny.  "I  find  I  don't  care  for  the  American 
version  of  tea  a  la  Russe.  .  .  .  Without  brandy,  I 
mean,"  she  explicitly  added;  then  turned  to  Nannie 
Elkus  with  an  appreciative  smile.  "I've  been  won 
dering  who  you  were,"  she  continued,  "and  now  I'm 
so  much  more  than  delighted  to  meet  you.  You're 
so  magnificent  to  look  at!  You  see,  I've  been  call 
ing  you,  to  myself,  of  course,  'Hippolita'  —  the 
Queen  of  the  Amazons,  you  know,  in  the  Midsum 
mer  Night's  Dream?  I  could  never  think  of  you  as 
'Nannie' — I  wonder  your  parents  could!  ...  I 
hope  you  won't  really  mind?" 

It  would  have  been  impossible,  at  that  instant,  for 


30  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Nannie  Elkus  to  say  whether  she  really  minded  or 
not,  so  dumfounded  was  she  by  the  sang-froid,  the 
utter,  cool  social  adequacy  of  this  Freshman  chit  in 
her  immediate  presence !  Naturally,  no  normal  girl 
minds  much  being  told  she  is  magnificent  to  look  at, 
even  if  the  statement  merely  tallies  with  a  deeply 
rooted  personal  conviction.  Still,  there  is  a  praise 
felt  to  be  slightly  ambiguous,  just  as  there  is  a  praise 
obviously,  ail-inclusively  final,  not  to  say  abject. 
Nannie's  too  human  preference  was  for  the  latter  va 
riety — a  variety  she  was  by  no  means  certain  she 
had  just  then  ingenuously  been  offered.  The  child 
before  her  hadn't  quite  the  look  of  one  self-aban 
doned  to  an  unreserved  admiration.  Nannie  Elkus 
more  than  suspected  the  presence  of  a  veiled,  quali 
fying  thought.  .  .  .  Rather  brusquely  she  let  Lilia's 
fingers  slide  from  hers.  No ;  she  would  not  be  cor 
dial!  One  ought  not  to  be  cordial  to  a  Freshman 
who  had  failed  in  the  first  law  of  Freshman  exist 
ence — a  decent  humility.  Nevertheless,  she  knew 
she  had  been  put  at  a  sad  disadvantage  by  the  pos 
sibly  two-edged  form  of  Goldy's  introduction.  She 
couldn't  at  once,  in  Goldy's  presence,  risk  an  open 
snub;  and  she  was  not  sufficiently  quick-witted  to 
achieve  a  satisfactory  nuance.  ...  In  short,  she 
achieved  at  last  nothing  better  than  an  insincere  state 
ment,  followed  by  what  she  hoped  might  prove  a 
withering  question. 

"It's  too  bad  you  should  be  the  only  member  of 
your  class  here  to-day.  .  .  .  Would  you  care  to  meet 
some  of  the  older  girls?" 

"I'd  much  rather  meet  some  of  the  younger  men," 
replied  Lilia,  with  her  faintly  quizzical  ("detest- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  31 

able!"  Nannie  later  described  it)  smile.  "I've  met 
far  too  many  girls  lately,  as  it  is.  And  to  think  you've 
had  four  years  of  it  and  can  still  bear  up  so  gor 
geously — and  bloom!  .  .  .  Oh,  thank  you,  Miss 
Goldsborough.  .  .  .  What  exquisite  tea !  ...  I  do 
wish  you  could  persuade  the  chef  here — have  we  a 
chef,  though  ? — to  make  drinkable  tea.  And  may  I 
have  one  of  those  little  green  cakes? — it  just  matches 
my  gown.  ,  .  ." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Nannie  Elkus  found  her 
self  studying  Lilia's  slender  silhouette  from  a  posi 
tion  not  of  her  own  choosing — a  pace  or  so  to  the 
left  and  perhaps  three  paces  to  the  rear.  It  was  not 
a  position  she  was  accustomed  to  being  left  in,  and 
Mr.  Gurney,  the  forsaken,  did  little  now  to  improve 
it  by  again  appearing  before  her  and  asking  if  he 
might  not  hope  for  an  introduction  to  "little  Miss 
Chenoworth."  Daughter  of  Anson  Chenoworth,  he 
understood.  Stunning  little  creature,  wasn't  she !  A 
bit  flossy  for  Alden,  perhaps — eh?  Not  quite  in 
the  picture  yet?  But  interesting — distinctly  interest 
ing.  .  .  . 

"Personally,  since  you  ask  me,"  Nannie  Elkus 
once  more  dropped  at  his  nose-bridge,  "I  think  her  a 
vulgar,  impertinent  little  beast!" 

"Oh,  dear,  dear,  dear — so  bad  as  that?  Well, 
after  all,  what  one  recalls  of  Chenoworth,  eh? — 
what  one  has  heard  ..."  murmured  Mr.  Gurney, 
his  insignificant  voice  vignetting  toward  silence,  his 
insignificant  person  edging  incontinently  away.  .  .  . 

And  Lilia,  meanwhile,  oblivious  of  these  dusky 
amenities,  was  providing  a  new  sensation.  Her  op 
portunity  for  this  had  come  with  the  appearance  of 


32  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

young — too-young — Assistant  Professor  Thorpe  in 
Goldy's  doorway.  "Oh,  Dr.  Thorpe!"  she  had  ex 
claimed,  lightly  setting  down  her  cup  and  almost  run 
ning  to  meet  him :  "I  am  so  glad  to  see  you ! — here, 
I  mean — away  from  the  class-room,  where  I'm  al 
ways  somehow  in  disgrace !  Do  let  me  get  you  a  cup 
of  really  truly  perfect  tea !" 


TWO  days  later,  having  obtained  a  half-hour  ap 
pointment  for  10  A.M.,  Dunster  Thorpe  pre 
sented  himself  at  the  private  office  of  Dr.  Orlando 
Harrod,  President  of  Alden.  He  was  at  once  ad 
mitted  to  the  "Throne  Room,"  as  the  students  called 
it,  by  Miss  Dart,  Dr.  Harrod's  super-efficient  pri 
vate  secretary. 

The  Throne  Room  was  a  rather  large,  vaguely 
vaulted  apartment,  not  too  well  lighted  by  three  nar 
row,  vaguely  Gothic  windows,  plainly  glazed  and 
grouped  at  one  end  of  the  room,  before  which  stood 
Dr.  Harrod's  ample  glass-topped  mahogany  desk. 
One  therefore  approached  Dr.  Harrod  from  the 
rear  and  walked  perhaps  thirty  feet  to  reach  him, 
down  a  strip  of  worn,  magenta-red  carpet  only  too 
well  known  to  certain  of  the  students  (and  to  all  by 
reputation)  as  "the  Road  to  Hell."  But,  for  the 
conscience-stricken,  the  special  terrors  of  this  Road 
to  Hell  lurked  chiefly  in  the  impression  of  utter  de 
tachment  conveyed  by  the  long,  lean,  slouching  back 
of  Dr.  Harrod  himself,  ill  seen  against  the  triple 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  33 

window-glare  at  the  end  of  the  vista.  In  his  own 
person,  at  least,  Dr.  Harrod  was  no  stickler  for  the 
trappings  of  academic  dignity.  He  was  usually  to 
be  found  in  a  suit  of  rough  dark  tweeds,  looking — 
with  his  shock  of  iron-gray  hair  and  seamed  Yankee 
face — not  unlike  a  dimmer,  less  energized  Mark 
Twain :  a  Mark  Twain,  say,  with  less  of  the  lion  in 
his  glance  and  more,  possibly,  of  some  wise,  weary 
old  raven,  given  merely  to  peering  down  now  and 
again  from  the  Inaccessible  at  the  timid  trivialities 
of  woman — or  man.  It  was  Miss  Dart's  custom 
always  to  announce  distinctly,  from  the  door  of  her 
anteroom,  the  name  of  any  being  she  started  down 
the  Road  to  Hell,  and,  having  done  so,  to  withdraw. 
It  was  Dr.  Harrod's  custom  to  pay  no  attention  to 
these  announcements.  Quailing  freshman  offender, 
or  fuming  millionaire  trustee — it  was  all  one  to  Dr. 
Harrod.  Let  those  who  sought  him  or  had  been 
haled  before  him  first  find  their  several  ways  to  his 
side.  He  would  then,  as  always,  rise  with  old-fash 
ioned  dignity  and  put  out  an  impartial  hand.  .  .  . 
(Malicious  rumor  even  has  it  that  one  feeble  of 
fender,  overcome  by  the  hushed  horror  of  the  way, 
fainted  midlong  the  Road  to  Hell,  and  coming  to 
at  last,  found  only  that  nothing  had  changed :  found 
Dr.  Harrod's  back  still  awaiting  her  at  the  end  of  the 
vista.  But  the  tale  is  held  to  be  apocryphal  by  the 
more  cautious  research  scholars  of  the  institution.) 
Being  a  hero,  Dunster  was  of  course  undaunted. 
He  walked  straight  down  the  Road  to  Hell  and  said 
"Good  morning,  Dr.  Harrod!"  crisply,  at  least  ten 
feet  before  he  had  come  to  the  visitor's  chair  (the 
"stool  of  repentance"  of  undergraduate  flippancy) 


34  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

by  Dr.  Harrod's  side.  Then  he  shook  Dr.  Har 
rod's  impartial  hand,  asked  briefly  after  his  health, 
and  without  further  preliminaries  proceeded  at  once 
to  business.  "Dr.  Harrod,"  he  began,  "may  I  ask 
just  how  far  you  consider  it  necessary  for  me  to  sub 
ject  myself  to  humiliation  by  one  of  my  students?" 

Dr.  Harrod  seldom  quite  met  an  interlocutor's 
eye ;  without  in  any  way  giving  an  impression  of  fur- 
tiveness,  he  would  usually  stare  apathetically  just 
over  the  top  of  the  head  of  the  person  addressing 
him.  "You  are  alluding,  I  presume,  Dr.  Thorpe,  to 
little  Miss  Chenoworth?" 

Dunster  could  not  easily  conceal  his  surprise.  "I 
confess,  sir,"  he  admitted,  "I  didn't  suppose  you 
were  even  aware  of  her  existence." 

"Yet  you  have  been  with  us  four  or  five  years," 
commented  Dr.  Harrod,  without  a  smile.  "Her 
father,"  he  presently  went  on,  "is  a  very  celebrated 
man,  Dr.  Thorpe — and  a  very  wealthy  man." 

"No  one  admires  him  more  than  I  do !"  Dunster 
blundered. 

"Ah?  ...  In  what  respect,  pray?" 

"Of  their  kind,"  responded  Dunster,  feeling  now 
for  his  words  more  carefully,  "his  plays  seem  to  me 
almost  flawless  works  of  art.  But  I  admit,"  he 
quickly  added,  "that  their  kind  is  far  from  the  high 
est.  Indeed,  their  subject-matter  is  often  very  ob 
jectionable." 

"Objectionable?"  murmured  Dr.  Harrod. 

"From  an  ethical  point  of  view,"  said  Dunster. 

"Do  you  consider  Shakespeare  an  ethical  writer?" 
asked  Dr.  Harrod. 

Dunster  just  hesitated,  fully  alert  now,  and  sweep- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  35 

ing  his  mental  antenna  about  for  a  possible  trap. 
.  .  .  "In  the  deepest  sense — yes,"  he  finally  achieved. 

Dr.  Harrod  dropped  his  eyes  swiftly  and  gave 
Dunster  a  single  appraising  look;  then  stared  wearily 
off  again  just  over  the  sleek  arch  of  his  smoothly 
parted  black  hair. 

"At  your  age,"  he  pronounced  slowly,  "I  should 
have  answered  just  as  you  have — but  not,  I  think, 
from  the  same  motive.  .  .  .  However.  What  is  it 
you  specifically  complain  of?" 

"Through  Miss  Goldsborough,  sir,  I  have  now 
made  three  recommendations  for  disciplining  Miss 
Chenoworth.  Nothing  has  come  of  them.  I  feel 
that  Miss  Chenoworth  is  being  unfairly  protected  by 
Miss  Goldsborough — doubtless  from  every  motive 
of  kindness.  But  if  an  exception  is  to  be  made  in 
Miss  Chenoworth's  favor  and  such  flagrantly  spe 
cial  privileges  granted  her,  then  I  must  ask  you  either 
to  remove  her  from  my  classes — or  to  accept  my  res 
ignation.  The  situation,  as  it  exists,  is  impossible — 
for  me,  at  least.  .  .  ." 

"Bravo,"  said  Dr.  Harrod.  "Now  at  last  I  see 
where  your  prudence  ends.  .  .  .  Where  your  pride 
begins,"  he  added;  but  not  as  if  he  were  offering  an 
explanation.  Then  his  voice  sharpened,  hardened. 
"You  are  of  course  mistaken,  my  dear  boy.  Miss 
Chenoworth  is  not  being  protected  by  Miss  Golds- 
borough.  She  is  being  protected — if  you  wish  to  call 
it  that — by  me." 

Dunster's  throat,  suddenly  dry  and  constricted, 
emitted  the  oddest,  most  meaninglessly  bird-like  lit 
tle  chirp — a  trivial  note  he  was  to  recall  with  rage 
and  self-scorn  for  weeks  thereafter.  Dr.  Harrod 


36  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

flowed  on,  ignored  it;  yet  the  boy  felt  he  had  de 
tected  in  his  abstract  eye  the  most  transient  of 
gleams. 

"But  personally,"  persisted  Dr.  Harrod,  "I 
should  prefer  you  to  put  it  that  she  is  being  ob 
served.  In  the  first  place,  I  am  entirely  responsible 
for  her  presence  at  Alden.  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  Lilia  and  her  father  this  past  summer.  As 
you  know,  I  spend  a  portion  of  each  summer  in 
northern  Italy.  Every  man,  every  old  man — that 
is  to  say,  every  lonely  man — should  have  a  hobby — 
and  mine  happens  to  be  Francia.  I  have  relentlessly 
pursued  the  simpering,  yet  ineffable  virgins  of  Fran 
cia  into  every  nook  and  corner  of  that  divine — but 
very  often  hot  and  dusty  and  smelly — land.  Well, 
Dr.  Thorpe,  I  was  last  August,  for  the  first  time  in 
already  perhaps  too  long  a  life,  overcome  by  heat 
while  walking  along  a  country  lane  near  Settignano, 
in  the  environs  of  Florence.  I  suffered  a  sunstroke 
and  fell  down  senseless.  When  I  revived — with  a 
most  unmerited  headache — I  was  lying  in  a  large, 
dark  apartment,  with  a  native  doctor  in  attendance. 
In  short,  I  had  been  picked  up  by  no  less  a  person 
than  Anson  Chenoworth  and  carried  in  his  motor  to 
his  very  beautiful  and  extensive  villa  at  Settignano. 
I  remained  there  as  an  enforced  guest  for  several 
days — and  returned  a  little  later  to  spend  a  week 
with  one  of  the  most  delightful  and  cultivated  men 
I  have  ever  met.  My  description  of  him,  so  far  as 
it  goes,  is  exact.  And  one  result  of  my  visit  is  the 
presence  of  his  daughter,  Lilia,  in  your  classes  to 
day.  A  disturbing  child,  Dr.  Thorpe — like  her 
father.  With  brilliant  qualities — brilliant  qualities. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  37 

.  .  .  What  she  immediately  needs  from  you — from 
us  all — is  not  conventional  discipline,  but  imagina 
tive  sympathy.  As  the  quality  is  somewhat  rare,  she 
is  not  likely  to  get  quite  all  of  it  that  she  needs. 
However.  .  .  .  Try  to  understand  her.  I  venture 
to  say  she'll  teach  you  more  than  you're  likely  to  be 
able  to  return  in  full.  May  I  count  on  you  for  din 
ner  on  Saturday?  Splendid.  Yes;  seven — the  cus 
tomary  hour.  Good  day  .  .  .  good  day.  .  .  ." 

This  was  perhaps  the  first  occasion  in  Dunster 
Thorpe's  life  when  he  had  crept  (in  spirit)  from 
another's  presence  feeling  a  beaten  and  abject  fool. 
Physically,  he  had  held  his  head  high  and  walked 
firmly  back  along  the  Road  from  Hell.  None  the 
less  was  he  whipping  himself  with  scorpions !  "Curse 
you!"  he  would  lash  himself,  as  he  went  competently 
about  his  duties,  a  stiff  little  smile  on  his  lips, 
"Curse  you !  Now  the  old  man  thinks  you  a  narrow 
pedant,  or  a  lip-serving  hypocrite — or  both !  Well — 
are  you? — are  you?  If  you  are,  why  acknowledge 
it!  Come  now  Are  you  a  conventional  pedant  at 
heart? — or  a  conventional  hypocrite? — or  some  hor 
rible  amalgamation  Oh,  damn  it! — is  the  old  man 
right?  .  .  .  And  if  so — well  .  .  .  what  then?" 


38  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


VI 

A  MERICAN  parents  usually  give  their  sons  sen- 
-**•  sible  names;  but  when  it  comes  to  the  naming 
of  daughters  all  common  sense  deserts  them.  In 
the  presence  of  a  female  baby  they  lose,  it  would 
seem,  all  self-restraint  and  their  innate  romanticism 
gushes  forth.  There  is  nothing  for  wonder,  then,  in 
the  fact  that  Lilia's  room-mates  were  named  Myrtle 
and  Idabelle.  Lilia  —  Myrtle  —  Idabelle.  .  .  . 
These  are  not,  however,  characters  in  some  Eliza 
bethan  pastoral  comedy.  No  masquerade  is  aimed 
at;  no  satire  intended.  So  far  as  given  names  go, 
these  are  just  any  three  Freshmen  thrown  by  chance 
together  in  one  of  the  rooming-units  of  Apsley  Hall. 
"Chenoworth,"  it  may  be  maintained,  is  at  least 
not  an  anti-climax  to  "Lilia" :  but  what  shall  be  said 
for  "Frame"  and  "Hecksher"  as  closing  strains  to 
a  preluding  "Myrtle"  and  "Idabelle"?  Must  one 
not  feel — sadly  or  gayly,  as  one's  temperament  per 
mits — that  American  romanticism  rushes  in  where 
Elizabethan  romanticism  would  have  feared  to 
tread? — Not  that  it  matters  greatly,  one  way  or 
t'other;  since  there  is  no  wringing  from  it  all  a  sin 
gle  quiver  of  Suspense.  .  .  .  And  Suspense,  mes  en- 
jants,  as  any  linotyper,  scene-shifter  or  snipper-and- 
paster  of  film  can  assure  you,  is  to  the  Art  of  Fiction 
what  Alcohol  (if  only  2.75  per  cent.)  is  (or  once 
was)  to  Light  Wine  or  Beer:  to  wit,  the  slight  se 
cret  cause  of  a  vast  public  consumption;  no  adequate 
substitute  (certainly  not  the  pure  grape-pressings  of 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  39 

wisdom  or  mere  hop-tang  of  wit)  ever  having  been 

discovered  by  any  —  however  gifted  —  teller  of  tales. 

After  which  brief  excursus,  "a  la  manure  de  -  " 


VII 

honestly,  Myrt,"  demanded  Idabelle 
Hecksher,  "what  do  you  make  of  her?" 

Myrtle  Frame,  a  plump,  pink  girl,  soundly  corn- 
fed  product  of  the  Middle  West,  had  announced  not 
five  minutes  before  this  question  that  Idabelle  was 
to  keep  her  big  mouth  shut  for  an  hour,  even  if  it 
killed  her;  for  she,  Myrtle,  simply  had  to  bone  up 
her  history  notes.  With  Idabelle's  question,  how 
ever,  she  threw  her  note-book  in  the  general  direc 
tion  of  the  window-seat,  upon  which  Idabelle 
sprawled  rather  than  reclined;  then  she  arose  and 
perched  herself  cross-legged  at  the  opposite  end  of 
the  window-seat  from  Idabelle. 

"What  do  you?"  she  asked.  .  .  . 

"My  child,"  said  Idabelle,  patronizingly,  "there 
are  a  good  many  little  things  like  that  which  it's  bet 
ter  for  you  not  to  know." 

"Oh,  you  think  you  know  a  lot,  don't  you!" 
grinned  Myrtle,  good-naturedly.  As  this  was  about 
Myrtle's  general  average  in  repartee,  and  as  she  was 
physically  fit  and  agreeable,  it  is  not  very  difficult  to 
deduce  from  the  combination  that  Myrtle's  post- 
academic  career  would  almost  certainly  be  domestic. 
"Anyway,  I  don't  care!"  she  continued;  "I  think 
Lilia's  the  best  ever!  I  just  simply  adore  her!" 

"Slush,"  commented  Idabelle,  who  was  thin  and 
sallow  and  plain,  with  the  small  black  eyes  and  long 


40  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

pointed  nose  that,  between  them,  gave  her  (most 
unfairly)  a  rather  maliciously  ratlike  expression. 
Like  many  a  plain  girl  with  brains,  Idabelle  prided 
herself  upon  her  contempt  for  "slushiness."  She 
believed  that  she  had  no  use  for  feelings;  which 
meant  merely  that  she  repressed  the  more  agreeable 
in  favor  of  the  more  acrid  emotions ;  and  she  always 
gibed  mercilessly  at  any  spontaneous  outflowing  of 
sentiment  from  others. 

"It's  not  slush!"  riposted  Myrtle.  "Most  every 
body  in  the  class  is  crazy  about  her  but  you !" 

"Then  most  everybody's  crazy.  But  you're  wrong, 
at  that.  I'll  bet  Lilia's  made  more  enemies  in 
four  weeks  than  you'll  make  in  four  years.  Or 
fifty.  Because  you'll  never  make  any.  Your  pud 
dingy  kind  never  does." 

"Thanks,  I'm  sure,"  said  Myrtle,  not  in  the  least 
ruffled  by  this  impeachment.  Then  she  paused  for 
Idabelle's  "Don't  mention  it!" — the  indicated  re 
tort;  but  Idabelle  refused  this  closing  chord  and  so, 
as  it  were,  left  the  whole  musical  passage  hanging 
forlornly.  .  .  .  The  vacuum  made  Myrtle  squirm, 
until,  abruptly,  Idabelle  announced  a  new  movement 
— with  kettle  drums. 

"The  truth  is,  Myrt,  I  really  like  Lilia  better  than 
you  do.  Only  I  don't  go  off  my  head  about  it.  She's 
not  exactly  my  kind;  but  she's  more  my  kind  than 
yours.  And  I  bet  you'll  admit  it,  too,  before  the 
term's  up !" 

This  was  far  too  steep  for  Myrtle.  "Like  her  I 
You  do!  What  are  you  always  knocking  her  for, 
then!"  she  wonderingly  exclaimed. 

"Well,  nobody's  perfect  .  .  ." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  41 

"Except  you !"  gurgled  Myrtle,  joyously  hugging 
her  knees. 

"Except  me,"  Idabelle  gravely  echoed.  "You  can 
score  ten  for  that  one  if  you  like,  Myrt — ten  out  of 
a  possible  hundred.  As  for  Lilia,  she's  her  own 
worst  enemy — just  as  I'm  mine;  only,  she's  so  darn 
pretty  it  makes  everything  she  says  and  does  con 
spicuous.  That — and  her  having  a  famous  father! 
Mine  sells  drygoods  in  Brooklyn,  thank  God! — no 
body  can  bring  him  up  against  me.  But  Anson 
Chenoworth — golly !  It  isn't  just  his  being  famous, 
either.  Everybody  more  or  less  knows  he's  been  a 
rip-snorter — all  over  the  map.  ...  So  what  chance 
has  Lilia  got — ?  .  .  .  Oh,  come  to,  Myrt!  I  asked 
you  a  question!" 

"You  didn't !  You  said  Lilia  was  'so  darn  pretty.* 
.  .  .  I've  been  chewing  on  that.  .  .  .  Honestly,  Ide, 
I  don't  think  she's  so  awfully  pretty  —  not  really 
pretty.  Except  maybe  her  hair  —  and  eyes  —  it's 
mostly  her  clothes  —  the  way  she  wears  them, 
and  .  .  ." 

Idabelle  snickered. 

"You  professional  beauties  are  all  alike.  Thank 
heaven  my  face  isn't  my  fortune !  But  all  the  same, 
Myrt,  I  notice  the  men  don't  agree  with  you.  Prof. 
Hinky-dink" — (Dr.  Harold  Pettibone,  psychologist: 
author  of  "Habit  and  Spontaneity,  a  Monograph," 
etc.,  etc.) — "jes'  can't  make  his  eyes  behave!  It's 
scan'lous!  As  for  His  Beautiful  Lordship !" 

"Nobody  calls  Professor  Thorpe  that  but  you  I" 

"Nobody  seems  to  be  on  to  him  but  me,"  Idabelle 
responded.  "He  doesn't  even  seem  to  be  on  to  him- 


42  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

self.  But  he's  like  Malvolio,  if  you  want  my  opinion. 
He's  sick  with  self-love." 

"Piffle !  That's  you  all  over,  Ide — just  because 
he's  good-looking*  You  always  seem  to  think  any 
one  who  isn't  a  fright  must  have  a  swelled  head." 

"Oh,  His  Beautiful  Lordship  hasn't  a  swelled 
head  exactly.  But  I  can't  explain  the  difference  to 
you,  sweetness — you're  not  good  at  differences." 

"Gee,  but  you're  a  knocker,  Ide — honestly  you 
are!  /  think  Professor  Thorpe's  a  perfect  dandy  I 
He  makes  everything  so  interesting.  I  suppose  it's 
awful  to  admit  it,  but  I  never  could  stand  Shake 
speare  before — now  I'm  crazy  about  it.  ...  But 
isn't  Lilia  the  limit  with  him!  They  got  on  each 
other's  feet  right  from  the  start !" 

"Lilia  and  Shakespeare ?" 

Myrtle  made  up  as  gargoyle-like  a  face  as  she 
could  manage. 

"Oh — you  mean  Lilia  and  His  Beautiful  Lord 
ship?" 

The  attempt  at  the  gargoyle  was  repeated.  Ida- 
belle  laughed. 

"Love  at  first  sight,  my  child.  His  Beautiful 
Lordship's  simply  mad  about  her." 

"What 1" 

"Certainly.    Lilia  knows  it,  too." 

"Has  she  said  so?" 

But  it  was  Lilia  herself  who  answered  this — half- 
thrilled,  half-incredulous — question. 

"No."  She  stood  quietly  at  the  door  of  their  tiny 
entrance-hall  and  smiled  at  her  room-mates.  "What 
ever  it  is  I  know,  I'm  quite  sure  I've  never  revealed 
it  to — anybody.  I'm  very  discreet."  Her  irony  was 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  43 

not  lost  upon  Idabelle,  whose  black  eyes  snapped  an 
appreciative  welcome.  Myrtle,  as  if  caught  in  a  dis 
graceful  indiscretion,  was  blushing  furiously.  "But 
what  is  it  I'm  supposed  to  know,  Myrtle?"  contin 
ued  Lilia,  serenely.  "It's  so  dreadfully  awkward, 
isn't  it — not  to  know  what  one  knows?" 

Being  flustered,  with  Myrtle,  always  led  at  once 
to  a  discard  from  fright. 

"Ide  says  you  know  Professor  Thorpe's  in  love 
with  you!"  she  blurted. 

"Oh — that"  Lilia's  characteristic  shrug  brought 
her  forward  a  little  out  of  shadow.  Her  hair,  her 
eyes,  flickered  into  glistening  life;  her  whole  slight 
presence  gleamed  and  sparkled.  Idabelle  had  sud 
denly  and  oddly  the  impression  that  she,  Idabelle, 
was  seated  in  a  theatre.  .  .  .  "Professor  Thorpe 
makes  it  a  fairly  open  secret,  doesn't  he — poor  boy?" 
queried  Lilia;  and  Idabelle  at  once  felt,  however  ab 
surdly,  a  strong  impulse  to  applaud.  .  .  .  "He  must 
be  very  inexperienced,"  added  Lilia  Chenoworth. 

Myrtle  was  now  looking  horrified,  genuinely  so. 
"Good  Lord  I"  she  babbled.  "Why,  you  sound  as 
if  you'd  had  thousands  of  love  affairs  already!" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Lilia,  easily,  "I've  never  had  an 
affair.  It  takes  two  to  make  an  affair — doesn't  it, 
Idabelle?"  Then  she  walked  on  into  her  bedroom, 
calling  lightly  back,  "Isn't  it  time  to  dress  for  din 
ner?" 


44  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


VIII 

-  ORLANDO  HARROD  was  a  widower  with 
three  daughters.  The  two  older  daughters 
were  married,  with  children  of  their  own;  and  they 
lived  far  from  him,  both  physically  and  sympathet 
ically,  in  great  inland  cities,  where  their  husbands 
prospered  and — to  rubber-stamp  and  end  the  mat 
ter — "surrounded  them  with  every  luxury."  Ruth, 
his  youngest,  who — by  courtesy,  at  least — kept  house 
for  him,  was  already  on  the  threshold  of  thirty;  a 
miniature,  fawn-colored  being,  too  delicately  fash 
ioned,  without  and  within,  for  the  rougher  uses  of 
this  world.  Her  invalidism  was  persistent  and  gen 
uine;  yet  no  one  knew  precisely  what  was  the  mat 
ter  with  her — least  of  all  perhaps  the  many  cele 
brated  specialists  who  had  gravely  studied  her  case ; 
and  the  final,  invariable  prescription  for  her,  sol 
emnly  offered  by  each  of  these  distinguished  gentle 
men  in  turn,  was  "rest."  She  must  take  things  more 
easily,  lie  down  more  hours  a  day,  never  exert  her 
self.  .  .  .  Ruth  often  joked  about  it,  wistfully,  with 
her  much-loved  father.  "It  really  isn't  their  fault, 
dearest.  If  God,  to  start  with,  couldn't  even  pro 
vide  me  with  a  working  constitution,  we  mustn't 
blame  it  on  them.  And  they're  all  certain  I'll  be 
perfectly  all  right  when  I  can  rest — eternally.  Mean 
while,  I'm  so  happy — just  as  it  is — with  you !" 

Ruth  was  like  that  with  her  father — at  once  cyn 
ical  and  gentle.  A  frail,  self-complete  little  stoic, 
she  was  without  illusions,  yet  without  bitterness.  But 
only  to  him  did  she  so  completely  reveal  herself. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  45 

In  her  somewhat  rare  contacts  with  outsiders  she 
was  always  pleasant,  and  even  sprightly,  but  she 
reserved  the  natural  force  and  pungency  of  her  mind. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Dr.  Harrod,  who  had 
never  elsewhere  met  with  her  like,  completely  adored 
her.  She  had  profoundly  influenced  him,  too.  There 
was,  he  wonderingly  admitted  to  himself,  hardly  one 
of  his — as  he  had  once  supposed — fully  matured 
ideas  which  during  the  last  decade  this  invalid 
daughter  had  not  quietly,  but  almost  ruthlessly, 
touched  and  changed. 

Unlike  most  of  the  older  college  presidents  of 
America,  Orlando  Harrod  was  a  doctor — not  of  di 
vinity,  but — of  philosophy.  And,  unlike  most  doc 
tors  of  philosophy,  philosophy  was  indeed  his  "sub 
ject."  Throughout  the  earlier  and  middle  years  of 
his  teaching  he  had  expounded  the  metaphysics  of 
Kant,  Hegel,  Fichte,  and  the  rest  of  the  Idealistic 
(Ego-centric)  Teutons,  with  a  personal  faith  in  their 
Abstract  Absolute  almost  as  burning  as  the  faith  of 
an  African  convert  in  "de  Lawd  Gawd  A'mighty." 
But  now,  perhaps,  it  was  fortunate  that  he  was  no 
longer  called  upon  to  teach — or  to  testify  in  detail  as 
to  what  the  years  had  left  him  of  his  once  majestic 
and  complete  Cosmic  Explanation.  He  was  now, 
rather  amusedly  than  hypocritically,  content  to  let 
his  former  reputation  for  Enormous  Certitude  and 
Tremendous  Moral  Earnestness  cling  publicly  about 
him;  privately,  he  could  afford  to  smile  at  its  per 
sistence.  He  no  longer  understood  the  Cosmos,  nor 
cared,  intellectually,  to  underwrite  it — but  he  still 
had  occasional  hopes  of  it.  That  was  about  what  it 
came  to.  And  though  he  well  knew  Ruth  to  be  re- 


46  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

sponsible  for  this  slow  dwindling  of  an  Impatient 
Certitude  toward  a  Patient  Scepticism,  he  bore  her 
no  grudge.  On  the  contrary.  He  loved  and  ad 
mired  her  all  the  more.  .  .  . 

True,  he  liked  to  speak  of  himself  as  an  old  and 
lonely  man;  but  this  was  a  mere  way  of  speech — 
a  pose.  Except  for  his  more  or  less  constant  anxiety 
over  Ruth's  uncertain  health,  he  was  enjoying  the 
latter  end  of  his  life  to  the  full.  He  had  achieved 
much  for  Alden,  and  for  education;  honors  had 
been  heaped  upon  him.  Now  all  that  lay  behind. 
In  another  year  he  would  step  out  and  leave  the 
last  of  his  professional  burdens  to  younger  hands. 
He  would  then  take  a  villa  near  Florence.  He 
would  perhaps  be  able  to  buy  one  Francia  to  adorn 
it.  And  he  would  live  there  with  Ruth.  .  .  . 

"What  are  you  dreaming  over,  dearest?"  she 
asked. 

Ruth,  that  evening,  had  decided  she  was  quite 
equal  to  coming  down  and  presiding  at  table  for 
her  father.  For  one  thing,  young  Professor  Thorpe 
was  coming,  and  he  had  always  interested  her — 
puzzled  her;  she  had  never,  to  her  own  satisfaction, 
been  able  to  make  him  out.  But  chiefly,  she  was 
eager  to  meet  Lilia  Chenoworth  again.  Ruth  had 
seen  the  child,  as  she  called  her,  three  or  four 
times  now,  each  time  briefly;  and,  granted  Lilians 
rather  quaintly  sophisticated  charm,  and  Dr.  Har- 
rod's  extraordinary  interest  in  her,  Ruth  felt  it 
inevitable  that  friendship,  or  something  approach 
ing  it,  should  spring  up  between  "the  child"  and 
herself.  Yet  thus  far,  as  she  well  knew,  her  true 
feeling  toward  Lilia  was  ever  so  slightly  hostile. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  47 

Ruth  could  smile  at  the  absurdity  of  this  feeling,  for 
she  recognized  that  its  ofigin  was  not  in  Lilia. 
Associated  with  every  thought  of  "the  child,"  she 
was  conscious  of  a  faint,  a  very  faint  twinge  of 
jealousy.  ...  It  was  all  clear  enough — and  suffi 
ciently  silly.  "If  I  will  always  let  myself  think  of 
father  as  my  exclusive  property,"  Ruth  reflected, 
"well — what  can  I  expect!"  So  there  it  was — for 
the  all  but  nothing  it  was  worth.  .  .  .  Yes;  she  was 
eager  to  meet  Lilia  Chenoworth  again.  Disregard 
ing  those  preposterous  twinges,  she  must  banish 
hostility  once  for  all — and  fully  discover  for  her 
self,  somehow,  just  why  her  fathers  interest  in 
Lilia  was  so  spontaneous,  so  warm. 

"A  penny  for  your  thoughts,"  she  added,  with 
her  slight,  wistful  smile. 

"They  were  all  of  you,  my  dear,"  said  Dr. 
Harrod.  "Of  you — and  Italy." 

"You  sound  like  a  poem  by  Browning,"  Ruth 
tenderly  laughed.  "And  I  like  you  to  sound  like 
that.  How  old-fashioned  we  are  !" 

They  were  seated  either  side  of  an  open  fire, 
in  the  large,  rather  nondescript  living-room  of  the 
President's  house — a  dwelling  built  just  after  the 
Civil  War,  with  all  the  high-ceilinged,  black-wal- 
nutted,  plaster-convoluted  pretentiousness  of  a  serf- 
satisfied  period.  The  interior  "decorations"  of  the 
President's  House,  it  is  true,  had  since  been  light 
ened  and  simplified,  but  the  high  ceilings  necessarily 
remained,  and  much  of  the  black  walnut — a  beau 
tiful  wood  in  itself,  though  sombre,  and  sadly  mis 
handled  by  the  unimaginative,  molding-mad  crafts 
men  of  the  mid-nineteenth  century.  This  living-room, 


48  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

however,  since  it  had  for  long  really  been  lived  in 
by  civilized  persons,  and  so  modified  through  the 
years  by  a  thousand  civilizing  contacts,  had  become 
a  most  homelike  and,  on  the  whole,  harmonious 
apartment.  There  were  in  it  great,  dingy,  com 
fortable  arm-chairs;  thoughtfully  placed  reading- 
lamps;  many  books.  It  was  a  room  that  defied 
analysis,  yet  possessed  an  atmosphere :  a  good  room 
to  read  Plato  in,  with  feet  on  the  fender ;  an  equally 
good  room  to  converse  in;  a  good  room,  indeed, 
for  almost  anything  but  frivolity,  which  it  nowhere 
seemed  to  invite.  One  could  laugh  in  it  without 
discomfort,  but  never  loudly.  That  sort  of  room. 
And  Ruth  and  her  father  had  become  part  of  it; 
the  room  was  vacant  without  them. 

"I  could  almost  wish,  Ruth,"  mused  Dr.  Harrod, 
"that  the  evening  were  over."  He  always  attended 
to  his  subjunctives  with  a  nicety — ! 

She  mocked  him,  gently.  "I  could  almost  wish  to 
believe  you,  father!  But  your  favorite,  Lilia,  is 
coming." 

"Ah — and  she's  leading  young  Thorpe  a  dance !" 
sighed  the  President  of  Alden,  that  omniscient  man. 
"He  doesn't  know  quite  what's  wrong  with  him — 
yet.  He  will." 

"That  child — ?    She's  setting  her  cap  so  soon — ?" 

"She's  setting,  my  dear,  if  I'm  not  mistaken,  a 
cap  and  bells — in  short,  a  fool's  cap — on  the  head 
of  a  young  man  who  may  or  may  not  deserve  it. 
That  remains  to  be  seen." 

"Do  you  like  him,  father?  I've  never  really 
known." 

"Nor  I.    The  boy  has  brains.     But  there's  some- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  49 

thing.  .  .  .  Well;  he's  ambitious — and  not,  perhaps, 
so  scrupulous  as  he  believes  himself." 

"There's  an  artist  in  him,  father.    He  has  imag 


ination." 


"Yes.  But  not  enough  to  imagine  himself  doing 
anything  really  wrong.  That's  a  dangerous  lacuna 
— don't  you  think?" 

"The  girls  all  say  they're  'crazy  about  him,'  ' 
smiled   Ruth.      "I   don't  wonder — much.  .  .,  .  He 
has  a  beautiful  head." 

"Physically,  yes  —  superb.  But  —  spiritually? 
That's  what  I  ask  myself.  .  .  .  And  Lilia  laughs 
at  him,"  he  added,  after  a  characteristic  pause. 

"But  doesn't  she  laugh  at  all  of  us?"  asked  Ruth. 
"I've  just  told  you  how  old-fashioned  we  are." 

"Well,"— reflected  Dr.  Harrod— "if  she  does, 
my  dear,  we  probably  deserve  it." 

— "How  cozy  you  look!" 

It  was  Lilia  speaking,  from  the  wide  hall-doorway. 
Neither  Ruth  nor  her  father  had  heard  the  bell. 

"May  I  tiptoe  in?" 

They  rose  to  welcome  her. 

She  was  wearing  a  quaint  little  sleeveless  tunic, 
in  green  and  silver,  that  hung  straight  and  faintly 
glittering  from  her  slight  girl's  shoulders.  Her 
face  had  an  even  pallor;  her  lips  were  vivid;  the 
flame-lights  in  her  hair  flickered  softly.  .  .  .  And 
something  in  Dr.  Harrod's  face  at  once  mischiev 
ously  amused  her. 

"Am  I  really  so  shocking  as  all  that,  Dr. 
Harrod?" 

"You  are  very  lovely,  my  dear  child." 

She  dropped  him  a  profound  courtesy.     "Quelle 


50  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

reception  grandiose,  M.  le  President  I  But,  all  the 
same,  you  don't  approve. — Why  doesn't  he  like  me 
to-night,  Miss  Harrod?  Because  my  arms  are 
bare?" 

"But  he  does  like  you,"  said  Ruth  pleasantly, 
taking  Lilians  hand  and  drawing  her  over  to  the 
fire.  "Father  never  quite  approves,  you  know,  of 
anything  his  eyes  enjoy  too  easily.  Unless  it's  a 
well-recommended  view — " 

"And  a  distant  one — ?"  Lilians  eyes  capered. 
"I  suppose,"  she  challenged  Dr.  Harrod  directly, 
"you  always  imagine  your  ancestors  rolling  about 
in  their  tombs,  and  it  makes  you  uncomfortable? 
I'm  sorry.  But  I  did  consult  my  room-mates  before 
coming  like  this.  Myrtle  Frame  said  Prexy  would 
be  horrified;  but  Idabelle  said  my  arms  were  so  thin 
anyway,  they  practically  didn't  count.  So" — she 
was  demure  with  him  now — "I  'took  a  chancel' ' 

"  'Took  a  chance  I'  "  Dr.  Harrod  groaned.  "My 
dear  Lilia — !" 

Her  eyes  at  once  petted  and  mocked  him.  "Isn't 
that  correct?"  she  asked.  "Myrtle's  trying  to  teach 
me  American,  but  she  says  my  accent  is  all  wrong — 
or  something.  It's  an  ugly  language,  by  the  way, 
isn't  it!  Or  am  I  just  an  expatriated  little  snob?" 

"My  child,"  said  Dr.  Harrod,  settling  himself 
again  in  his  easy  chair,  "you  are  now  raising  a 
question  that  somebody,  some  day,  will  have  to  de 
cide.  Are  we  all,  spiritually,  expatriated  snobs — we 
who  try  to  preserve  what  we  call  a  standard  of 
speech?  .  .  .  Or,  for  that  matter,"  he  added,  "a 
standard  of  anything!" 

"Of  course  we  are,"  Ruth  gently  offered.     "For 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  51 

I'm  certain  what  we  call  'taste'  is  more  or  less  an 
illusion,  like  everything  else.  ...  I  can't  help  feel 
ing  that  people  who  chew  gum  are  vulgar;  they 
can't  help  feeling  that  people  who  don't  are  snobs. 
Meanwhile,  the  earth  goes  right  on  revolving — so 
it  probably  doesn't  matter  much  to  the  Universe, 
either  way." 

Lilia's  eyes  were  fixed  now,  with  an  almost  startled 
intensity,  on  Ruth's  face.  She  saw  in  it  a  great 
weariness  of  life — or  was  it  rather  a  great  hunger 
for  fullness  of  life  withheld?  It  must  be  unbearable 
not  to  be  wholly,  splendidly  alive!  "I  like  you, 
Miss  Harrod,"  she  said,  suddenly — oddly.  "Per 
haps  that  doesn't  matter  to  the  Universe,  either. 
But  it  matters  now  to  me/'9  Then,  with  a  swift 
transition,  she  turned  to  Dr.  Harrod.  "How  won 
derful  you  both  are!  I  do  want  you  to  care  for 
me — heaps!  But  why  should  you?  I've  no  stand 
ards  at  all — only  feelings.  That's  why  I  dress  like 
this.  ...  If  I'm  not  making  the  most  of  myself — 
playing  myself  up  for  all  or  more  than  I'm  worth — 
I  feel — oh,  horrid/  Inside,  you  know.  I  can't  bear 
it.  ...  That's  just  what  I  couldn't  make  Professor 
Thorpe  understand — the  first  time  he  called  on  me 
to  recite.  .  .  .  Well,  it's  no  use  trying  to  explain — 
it's  subtle;  it's  a  thing  you'd  have  to  feel — and  he 
couldn't  fed  it !  But  the  whole  situation  was  wrong 
— so  I  couldn't  go  on  with  it.  I  simply  had  to  leave 
the  room. — Just  as  father  simply  had  to  be  free  of 
mother.  He  couldn't  go  on  with  it.  .  .  ." 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  go  on  with  it  either,  Lilia,  just 
now,"  said  Dr.  Harrod*  rising  once  more.  "I  be- 


52  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

lieve  I  heard  the  bell."  He  crossed  the  room  slowly 
and  walked  off  into  the  hall. 

"Oh — and  I  was  hoping  so  it  would  be  just  us! 
Who  is  coming?" 

"Only  Dr.  Thorpe.  .  .  ." 

"Oh—!     Only  His  Beautiful  Lordship!" 

"Is  that  what  you  call  him?" 

"Sometimes.  Idabelle  invented  it.  I  shouldn't 
dare  tell  you  what  I  call  him  myself." 

"You  really  dislike  him?" 

"No.  ...  I  won't  lie  to  you,  Miss  Harrod. 
Why  should  I?" 

"Thanks,  dear. — Father  hopes  so  you'll  become 
— better  friends." 

"I  see.  .  .  .  It's  a  conspiracy." 

"Perhaps— a  little." 

"He  w  such  a  dear — your  father,  I  mean.  I  feel 
like  monkeyshines  to-night — being  conspired  against 
.  .  .  but  I  can't  bear  to  disappoint  him.  I  shall 
have  to  behave. — Must  I  ?" 

Ruth  responded  with  her  quiet  smile:  "Well — 
you  might  try."  Then,  still  quietly,  she  reached  over 
and,  for  an  instant  only,  caressed  the  younger  girl's 
hand. 

"I  like  you,  Lilia,"  she  said. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  53 


IX 


TT  was  with  a  distinct  sense  of  personal  outrage 

•*•  that  young  —  too-young  —  Assistant  Professor 
Thorpe  entered  President  Harrod's  living-room,  to 
be  greeted  there  only  by  "poor  little  Miss  Harrod" 
(as  he  negligently  thought  of  her)  and — of  all 
exquisite  impertinences !  —  by  "that  infernal  Miss 
Chenoworth!"  This  was  deliberate,  then:  a  put-up 
job!  The  old  man  had  cleverly  manoeuvred  him 
into  a  position  which  would  make  it  more  than  ever 
difficult  for  him  to  deal,  drastically,  with  Miss  Chen- 
oworth's  case.  ...  It  was  a  great  honor,  of  course, 
to  be  invited  to  the  President's  House  in  this  intimate, 
informal  way;  Dunster  had  never  before  been  enter 
tained  there  except  on  formal — almost  official — 
occasions.  That  is,  Dunster  would  gladly  have  con 
sidered  it  a  great  honor — if  he  had  not  at  once  felt, 
on  seeing  Miss  Chenoworth,  that  it  was  a  mere 
stroke  of  secret  diplomacy.  Well ;  the  old  man  was 
a  wonder — a  somewhat  devious  wonder!  Dunster 
knew  himself  both  trapped  and  gagged  against  any 
possibility  of  protest.  To  be  in  any  sense  boorish 
about  it  would  be  merely  to  prove  himself  all  that 
he  hoped  he  was  not — an  underbred  fool.  On  the 
other  hand,  he'd  be  damned  if  he'd  let  himself  slide 
(as  was  evidently  intended)  into  a  cordial  accept 
ance  of  the  situation.  Polite — pleasant — but  firm. 
.  .  .  That  was  his  line.  He  seated  himself  by  "poor 
little  Miss  Harrod"  and  began  immediately,  with 
respectful  animation,  to  do  his  poor  best  to  interest 


54  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

and  amuse  her.  (His  "poor  best" — thus  he  frowne3 
upon  it:  for  Dunster,  after  conversing  socially,  was 
always  haunted  by  an  impression  that  he  had  not 
done  himself  justice,  and,  like  a  besotted  bridge- 
player,  was  slave  to  the  folly  of  private  post- 
mortems.) 

Dinner  was  announced.  Dunster,  properly  enough, 
if  rather  needlessly,  offered  his  arm  to  Ruth.  As 
he  conducted  his  little  hostess — too  ceremoniously, 
perhaps  —  he  could  see  Lilia  flirting  shamelessly 
(for  he  could  call  it  nothing  else)  with  Dr.  Har- 
rod;  and  it  struck  him  that  the  old  man  was 
surprisingly  pleased  and  flattered  by  her  attentions. 
"That  girl  has  no  soul" — thought  Dunster — uno 
conscience — no  sense  of  honor — nothing  a  decent 
girl  should  have.  And  how  thin  she  is  I"  He  was 
bending  to  Ruth  Harrod  with  an  exaggerated  defer 
ence  as  he  passed  by  Lilia.  "Oh,  must  I  take  your 
arm  now,  M.  le  President!"  he  heard  her  exclaim: 
"What  fun!  I  love  being  haughty  and  dignified. 
I  can  do  it  so  beautifully  .  .  .  But  I  thought  we 
were  dining  en  famille — ?" 

He  could  feel  his  ears  burning  as  he  entered  the 
dining-room.  They  were  sensitive  members — Dun- 
ster's  ears;  a  trifle  too  large — a  trifle  too  prominent. 
He  had  long  been  absurdly  worried  because  of  them 
— had  feared  they  gave  him  a  slightly  countrified 
aspect;  he  resented  them — much  as  Achilles  must 
have  resented  his  assailable  heel.  So,  inevitably, 
whenever  Dunster  was  embarrassed,  it  was  his  ears 
that  blushed  for  him  and  betrayed  him.  Damn 
them !  He  could  feel  them  doing  so  now — stretched 
like  vast  rosy  purple-veined  bat-wings  right  between 


LILIA    CHENOWORTH  55 

that  infernal  girl  and  the  tall  table-candles!  .  .  . 
Great  heavens ! — had  poor  little  Miss  Harrod  been 
putting  him  some  question!  .  .  .  Hastily — quite  at 
random — he  murmured  assent.  And  instantly  Ruth 
was  touched  to  spontaneous  laughter;  dropping  his 
arm,  turning  back  to  her  father  and  Lilia.  "I've 
just  asked  Dr.  Thorpe  where  he  spent  his  vacation, 
and  his  reply  is — Yes. — Let's  make  it  an  Alice-in- 
Wonderland  evening,  all  through!"  she  continued, 
with  quiet  mischief.  "I'll  be  the  Dormouse — natur 
ally;  you're  the  March  Hare,  Lilia — and  father  can 
be  the  Mad  Hatter — ." 

"Then  Dr.  Thorpe  will  have  to  be  Alice!"  cried 
Lilia.  "How  perfect !  The  gender's  rather  mixed — 
but  otherwise  she  suits  him  exactly." 

Dunster  made  a  desperate  effort  to  forget  his 
ears — his  faux  pas — himself,  and  to  join  in  the 
moment's  fun: 

"I've  no  objection  to  being  Alice,"  he  said.  "I 
shan't  have  to  sparkle  much.  She  wasn't  a  brilliant 
child,  you  remember — ." 

"Far  from  it!"  Lilia  darted  at  him.  "But  she 
had  a  frightfully  good  opinion  of  herself  .  .  .  And 
she  was  rather  a  "dear,  too,  in  spite  of  it,"  she  added, 
lightly;  giving  him  a  direct,  clear  look. 

Some  years  later  that  dinner  had  become  more 
or  less  a  blank  to  Dunster.  It  was  erased  by  memo 
ries  of  the  unexpected  hour  that  followed  it — and  of 
other  hours. 


56  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


TT  was  just  as  they  were  finishing  dinner  that  the 
•••  door-bell  rang.  Dependable,  middle-aged  Julia, 
combined  waitress  and  upstairs  maid  of  the  Presi 
dent's  simple  household,  went  to  answer  it,  and 
returned  presently  with  a  folded  sheet  of  paper 
which  she  handed  to  Dr.  Harrod.  He  opened  it 
rather  impatiently;  then  the  contents  evidently  sur 
prised — disturbed  him,  and  he  read  through  the 
brief  note  with  a  fixed  attention.  "Pardon  me," 
he  muttered,  rising  slowly  as  he  did  so:  "Ruth,  I 
shall  have  to  leave  our  guests  to  you — for  a  short 
time  only,  I  trust.  A  somewhat  bothersome  matter 
has  come  up — nothing  serious.  Never  mind  about 
my  coffee;  I  shall  sleep  better  without  it.  Yes  .  .  . 
I'll  rejoin  you  all,  later — in  the  living-room  .  .  .  J 
He  was  walking  from  them  as  he  concluded;  his 
face  was  set  and  stern — almost  grim,  Dunster 
thought.  It  was  apparent  that  the  manner  of  her 
father's  going  had  troubled  upoor  little  Miss 
Harrod." 

She  rose  with  a  smile,  however,  and  led  the  way 
back  to  the  living-room,  where  Julia  served  coffee, 
while  Dunster  poked  up  the  waning  fire  and  put  on 
another  log.  "You  may  smoke,  of  course,"  said 
Ruth  to  Dunster.  "Father  always  has  his  cigar 
with  me  after  dinner."  Meeting  Lilia's  smile — she 
laughed,  briefly.  "No,  Lilia,  I  didn't  mean  that 
I  also  have  my  cigar  with  him !  I  do  smoke  cigar 
ettes  occasionally — to  his  pretended  disgust;  but 
never  here.  The  one  thing  I  can  do  for  Alden,  you 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  57 

see,  is  to  set  an  example — even  if  it  makes  me  a  hypo 
crite.  Father's  a  good  deal  disturbed  by  the  way 
smoking  on  the  sly  has  increased  among  the  girls. 
I  don't  think  he  so  much  minds  the  smoking  as  the 
slyness.  But  he  admits  he  hasn't  the  moral  courage 
to  permit  the  girls  to  smoke,  if  they  wish  to,  in  their 
rooms.  —  Would  you  have,  Dr.  Thorpe,  in  his 
place?" 

Dunster  had  lighted  a  cigarette.  "Well,  Miss 
Harrod,"  he  replied,  "after  your  confession  I  sup 
pose  I  ought  to  pretend  to  be  very  broad-minded 
about  it.  But  I'm  not.  I  don't  like  the  idea  of 
women  smoking.  It  rubs  me  the  wrong  way." 

"I  knew  he'd  say  that,"  said  Lilia  to  Ruth,  calmly. 
She  turned  to  Dunster.  "It's  odd  I've  never  really 
taken  it  up — considering  my  opportunities.  Mother 
smoked  like  a  furnace  ...  I  must  take  it  up  now, 
though — if  only  as  a  protest." 

Dunster  gave  her  a  superior  look.  "A  protest 
against  what,  Miss  Chenoworth?  The  Eternal 
Masculine?" 

"If  that's  what  you  call  yourself,"  she  lightly 
answered.  "Do  tell  me — why  does  the  idea  of 
women  smoking  rub  you  the  wrong  way?" 

"Oh,"  he  parried,  not  without  annoyance,  "I'm 
not  sere-and-yellow  enough  to  think  it  sinful.  I  just 
don't  like  it." 

"And  of  course  that  settles  the  question!"  Lilia 
flashed  at  him — then  put  out  her  hand.  "May  I 
have  a  cigarette  now,  please?" 

Ruth  covered  the  extended  hand,  imprisoning  it 
with  a  quiet  finality  in  hers.  "No,  Lilia  dear,"  she 
laughed,  "you  may  not.  In  father's  absence,  I'm 


58  LILIA   CHENOWORTfT 

Cerberus.  The  official  proprieties  of  his  fireside 
must  be  preserved  .  .  .  But  how  tiresome  that 
he  should  be  kept  like  this!  Being  a  college  presi 
dent  is  worse  than  being  a  country  doctor.  Poor 
father's  time  is  never  his  own." 

Unexpectedly  she  rose,  adding,  "If  you'll  forgive 
me — and  promise  me  not  to  come  to  blows — I'll 
venture  out,  just  to  see  if  I  can't  drive  off  the  in 
truder.  This  is  the  one  hour  of  father's  day  I  fight 
for,  Dr.  Thorpe — his  hour  after  dinner." 

Ruth  had  managed  her  withdrawal  deftly  enough, 
yet  both  Dunster  and  Lilia  had  felt  beneath  her 
words  a  controlled  anxiety. 

"Miss  Harrod's  the  darlingest  person  I've  ever 
known!"  exclaimed  Lilia.  "If  I  were  a  man  I'd 
make  her  marry  me — just  to  have  her  with  me  al 
ways  and  take  care  of  her !" 

Dunster's  response  was  a  perfunctory  "Poor  lit 
tle  Miss  Harrod.  .  .  ."  And  Lilia  stared  at  him, 
incredulous.  "You  are  the  most  extraordinary,  dis 
appointing  man !  Can't  you  feel  how  stupid  it  is  to 
pity  her!  She's — complete — just  as  she  is."  Lilia 
was  still  staring  at  him.  "You're  so  blind  to  people, 
somehow!  Hopeless.  .  .  .  There's  one  thing  cer 
tain,  Dr.  Thorpe — you  may  be  able  to  teach  Shake 
speare,  but  I'm  sure  you've  never  lived  him.  I'm 
sure  you  couldn't  write  two  lines  of  a  really  truly 
living  play!" 

She  could  hardly  have  hurt  him  more  cruelly.  He 
believed,  for  an  irrational  instant,  that  she  must  have 
ferreted  out  his  most  secret  ambition  and  was  delib 
erately  mocking  him.  But  that  was  impossible! 
Nevertheless,  he  resented  her  pert  license  of  tongue 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  59 

— oh,  but  violently!  She  had  snapped  the  last 
strand  of  his  patience.  He  could  no  longer  master 
his  rage.  The  tempest  of  it  broke  from  him  in  gusts. 

"See  here  ...  if  you  think  I'm  going  to  stand 
any  more  of  this — conceited  impudence.  .  .  .  Why, 
damn  you  .  .  ." 

There — he'd  done  it  this  time.  It  was  a  thing 
that  was  bound  to  have  happened  some  day;  he  had 
always  held  himself  so  tightly  in  hand.  .  .  .  Vis 
ibly,  grotesquely  trembling,  he  clung  to  the  arms  of 
his  chair;  a  cold  sweat  bathed  him;  he  was  wrung 
with  a  sharp  nausea.  .  .  .  Well — she  could  triumph 
now — drive  him  from  the  house — from  the  college 
— almost,  he  thought,  from  the  civilized  world !  He 
had  delivered  himself  into  her  hands. 

"Oh,  I'm  sorry — sorry  .  .  ."  Lilia's  voice  was 
coming  to  him  with  an  unexpected  sympathy,  a 
strange  gentleness.  "Please  don't  be  afraid  of  me. 
...  I  don't  mind  a  bit  your  swearing  at  me — not 
if  I  deserved  it.  I  haven't  before.  I've  been  right, 
and  you've  been  wrong.  But  this  time  I  see  I'm  the 
stupid  one — not  you.  I  honestly  didn't  know  you 
were  all  sensitive  nerves  like  that — underneath.  I 
am  sorry!" 

And  presently  he  found  himself  telling  her — this 
exasperating,  artificial  child — things  which  all  his 
life  he  had  jealously,  and  even  fearfully,  hidden  and 
guarded. 

"When  you  said  I  couldn't  write  two  lines  of  a 
living  play  ...  it  was  that  .  .  .  something  ex 
ploded  inside  my  head.  .  .  ."  He  grinned,  feebly. 
"What  doctors  call  a  brain-storm,  I  guess.  ...  It 
means  so  much  to  me — all  I  intend  to  get  from  life. 


60  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

...  It  means — freedom.  .  .  .  But  I  can't  explain." 
"I  wish  you  could,"  she  answered  him.  UI  wish 
you  would.  Fve  helped  father — lots.  Not  writing. 
I  can't  write  anything.  But  I  know  when  a  scene 
feels  right — when  it  will  play.  .  .  .  And  when  it 
won't,  too."  She  paused.  "I  was  born  to  act.  It's 
all  I'm  good  for — just  acting.  But  that's  enough, 
isn't  it?  ...  Father's  trying  to  keep  me  from  the 
stage.  He  can't;  but  I  don't  mind  his  trying — a 
year  or  so  longer.  You  see,  I'm  working  things  out, 
all  the  time — my  own  way.  .  .  .  When  I  begin,  I'll 
be  ready." 

Dunster  felt  no  impulse  to  smile  at  Lilia's  simply 
expressed  confidence  in  herself;  it  did  not  strike  him, 
then  or  later,  as  naive.  But  he  envied  her.  .  .  . 

They  had  been  deep  in  talk  of  themselves,  their 
aspirations,  for  almost  an  hour  when  first  they  were 
aware  that  neither  Dr.  Harrod  nor  Ruth  had  re 
turned. 


XI 


r<T)UT,  Dr.  Thorpe — what  can  be  the  matter?" 
*•}  demanded  Lilia.  "It's — creepy — being  left 
here  like  this.  .  .  ." 

"They  must  have  been  gone  an  hour."  He 
frowned,  puzzling  at  it;  then  shook  his  head.  "I 
suppose  we  ought  to  go—?" 

"But  we  can't  just  slip  out,"  she  protested.  Dun 
ster  saw  her  shiver  nervously,  and  she  knew  he  had 
seen  her.  "It's  because  nothing  happens — nothing 


LILIA    CHENOWORTH  61 

at  all,"  she  rather  lamely  explained.  "I  hate  blind- 
spots  in  life — don't  you?" 

"Blind-spots?'^ 

"Yes;  things  in  life — experiences — I  can't  get  in 
touch  with  .  .  .  can't" — she  worried  at  it — "take 
into  myself!" 

"You  are  sensitive,  too,  aren't  you?"  he  very 
fatuously  said. 

Lilia  couldn't  help  smiling  at  that.  She  rose  now, 
with  decision. 

"People  simply  mustn't  dump  their  guests  down 
like  this  and  abandon  them.  C'est  une  reverence 
pied-de-veau !  I  shall  ring." 

He  was  close  beside  her.  "Wait,"  he  pleaded — 
"please  wait  a  moment.  I  hope  nothing  is  really 
wrong  here — but  I  can't  help  feeling  glad  to  have 
had  this  chance  to  know  you  better." 

"Do  you ?" 

"Well,  this  talk  we've  had  to-night  makes  a  dif 
ference-— doesn't  it?" 

But  she  mocked  at  him,  with  the  slight,  character 
istic  shrug  (affected,  un-American,  he  thought  it) 
which  had  from  the  first  so  easily  irritated  him,  and 
which  now  seemed  to  him  to  set  her  daring  little 
frock,  her  whole  daring  little  person,  aloofly  a-glitter. 

"Difference?"  she  echoed.  .  .  .  "When  has  there 
ever  been  anything  but  a  difference  between  us,  mon 
cher  professeur?"  And  he  caught  from  her  eyes 
only  a  satirical  challenge  as  she  almost  pirouetted 
away  from  him  to  look  for  the  push-button.  Dun- 
ster  was  chilled  at  once,  sharply  disillusioned;  he 
hated  himself  for  having  given  her  his  full  confidence 


62  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

so  freely.  "Shallow,"  he  raged  within,  "essentially 
shallow!  I've  been  a  fool." 

Lilia  had  found  her  push-button  by  the  hall  door 
way  and  was  pressing  it  firmly.  That  he  would  have 
hesitated  longer  before  it,  Dunster  knew;  and  he 
would  then  barely  have  touched  the  bell.  "Ruth 
less,"  his  inner  Commentator  took  up  the  prosecu 
tion,  "hard.  .  .  .  She's  been  laughing  at  you  all  the 
time.  And  you  told  her  about  your  plays — you  told 
her  about  your  plays!" 

Dunster  had  a  quick,  violent  impulse  to  stride 
across  the  room  and  crush  her  angrily  to  him.  It 
weakened  his  knees,  that  resisted  impulse,  and  he 
dropped  back  to  his  chair  and  fumbled  in  the  pock 
ets  of  his  dinner-coat  for  a  cigarette. — Why  the  devil 
didn't  somebody  come  and  release  him  from  tor 
ment?  He  stared — nay,  glared  at  a  slight  scratch 
on  the  shiny  left  tip  of  his  patent-leather  shoes.  He 
was  doing  this,  he  knew,  because  he  so  wanted  to 
look  across  at  her.  He  was  aware  of  a  sharp  con 
test  going  on  between  two  sets  of  muscles  in  his 
neck;  and  his  head,  neck,  shoulders,  his  whole  trunk, 
ached  and  grew  rigid.  .  .  .  Oh,  damn — damn — 
damn — damn.  .  .  . 

"Lilia, — Thorpe,  my  dear  fellow, — what  in  the 
world  must  you  think  of  us !  Ruth  and  I  owe  you  a 
thousand  apologies." 

The  President  of  Alden,  whose  face  had  unmis 
takably  cleared,  was  standing  in  the  hall  doorway, 
his  arm  about  Ruth;  and,  as  Dunster  rose,  he  slipped 
his  free  arm  about  Lilia's  waist  and  moved  slowly 
forward  with  the  two  girls.  "A  rather  annoying  col- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  63 

lege  matter,  Thorpe/'  he  vaguely  offered:  "Question 
of  discipline,  of  course  .  .  .  h'm  .  .  .  when  Ruth 
came  out  I  thought  best  to  consult  her.  I  often  do 
in  such  dilemmas.  Well — I  trust  the  whole  thing  is 
finally  disposed  of."  He  relinquished  his  fatherly 
attitude  and  moved  from  between  the  girls  to  his 
smoking-table.  "Don't  think  of  leaving  yet,  my 
boy?  Why  not  join  me  in  a  cigar?  Do. — Other 
wise  I  shall  feel  I  have  spoiled  both  your  evening 
and  mine." 

However,  Dunster  refused  the  cigar,  remaining 
only  for  a  cigarette  and  for  such  parting  courtesies 
as  he  was  able  to  muster.  Dr.  Harrod  had  an 
nounced  that  he  would  himself  escort  Lilia  to  Apsley 
Hall;  he  always  liked  a  breath  of  air  before  turn 
ing  in.  Dunster's  adieu  to  Lilia  was  formal — almost 
severe.  They  did  not  shake  hands. 

When  Dunster  was  safely  off,  Lilia  turned  to  Dr. 
Harrod  with  wicked  eyes.  "Match-maker!"  she 
said. 


XII 


CTRIDING  home  along  Ashmun  Street,  that 
*^  night,  Dunster — he  had  twenty  times  reassured 
himself — longed  for  nothing  so  much  as  the  unlit 
solitude  of  room  and  bed.  He  had  had  his  lesson 
assigned  him,  and  he  longed  now  to  con  it  over  in 
security — to  abandon  himself  to  any  luxury  of  strong 
feeling  or  grim  reflection  which  the  immediate  pos 
ture  of  his  life  demanded.  Never  before  had  the 
immediate  posture  of  his  life  struck  him  as  at  once 


64  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

so  awkward  and  so  insecure.  He  pictured  his  en 
tity  as  a  scared  and  self-entangled  figure  precariously 
flattened  against  the  polished  surface  of  an  almost 
perpendicular  cliff;  and  below,  veiled  by  yeasty 
cloud,  gaped  he  knew  not  how  dark  and  shattering 
a  chasm.  ...  It  would  be  a  narrow  squeak  now  if 
he  should  finally  be  able  to  summon  his  full  power 
and  scramble  up  to  some  ledge  of  safety. 

That  infernal  child — !    Exquisite.  .  .  . 

He  put  out  his  hand  to  the  latch  of  Mrs.  Sterrett's 
front-gate,  only  to  stand  thus,  with  arm  extended, 
frozen  to  physical  immobility  by  the  interior  shock 
of  an  unforeseen — of  an  amazing — of  a  stupendous 
idea! 

Unforeseen — amazing — stupendous!  But  simple 
— obvious,  too — like  all  great  ideas  when  grasped! 
.  .  .  He  had  only  to  marry  Lilia  Chenoworth — and 
everything  he  most  wanted  from  life  would  easily  be 
his.  Money !  His  material  fetters  would  fall  away 
from  him  at  a  stroke.  Influence !  Anson  Cheno 
worth  would,  of  course,  introduce  him  to  just  the 
right  people  and  thrust  him  forward  professionally 
in  all  the  most  favorable  quarters.  And  even  Lilia 
herself  (if — but  he  did  not  complete  that  "if") 
might  prove  an  extraordinary  asset — in  so  many  sub 
tle  and  important  ways. 

Ah!  here  was  a  short-cut  indeed  to  fortune  and 
fame !  And  poor  Aunt  Emily  was  right,  after  all ! 
It  was  always  absurd,  in  so  uncertain  a  world  as  this, 
not  to  make  the  most  of  one's  opportunities.  .  .  . 
Especially  when  making  the  most  of  them  involved 
no  sense  of  personal  dishonor.  .  .  .  For  was  he  not 
in  love  with  Lilia,  madly  in  love  with  her !  He  had  no 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  65 

hesitation  now  in  acknowledging  to  himself  so  start 
ling  a  fact.  And  surely  one  ought  to  woo  and,  if  pos 
sible  (but  why  should  it  not  be  possible?),  win  the 
girl  one  was  madly  in  love  with — ?  Not  to  trust 
so  deep  and  true  an  instinct — would  not  that  in  itself 
be  a  sort  of  crime  against  the  Veiled  Spirit  of  Life? 
Why, — naturally!  For,  of  course,  otherwise  the 
whole  thing  would  be  out  of  the  question — beyond 
the  pale  of  consideration  by  any  decently  organized 
man.  No ;  it  lifted  Dunster's  chin  a  little  to  feel  that 
he  couldn't  possibly  do  a  thing  like  that!  Merely, 
a  belated  recognition  had  come  to  him — and  just  in 
time.  He  had  been  thinking  of  Lilia  (how  stupidly! 
— how  unlike  him  that  was !)  as  quite  the  wrong  per 
son — fighting  himself  almost  with  anguish  because 
of  his  secret,  persistent  obsession  by  her — and  lo, 
all  the  time  she  was  precisely  the  right  person,  the 
really  predestined  person,  the  very  —  perhaps,  the 
only  —  living  girl  whose  fortune  and  father  and  im 
mediate  interests  would  be  most  likely  to  do  him  the 
utmost  possible  good! 

He  clicked  open  the  latch  and  passed  the  gate. 
Distantly,  as  he  did  so,  the  chapel  clock  struck  ten — 
and  Mrs.  Sterrett,  his  landlady,  opened  the  front 
door  of  her  dwelling  and  began  to  call  "kitty  .  .  . 
kitty  .  .  .  kitty  ..."  on  a  high,  soft,  twittering 
trill,  like  the  trill  of  a  field-sparrow.  Bed-time.  Mrs. 
Sterrett  always,  as  became  her  years,  retired  at  ten. 
But  Dunster  no  longer  felt  the  need  of  solitude  and 
darkness.  He  had  conned  his  lesson  in  an  intuitive 
flash.  Thoughts  of  the  cliff  and  the  chasm  no  longer 
recurred  to  him.  He  had  summoned  his  full  power 
and  had  swung  himself  up  to  a  broad,  high  tableland 


66  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

— Fortune's  uplifted  platter  whereon  glowed  and 
glittered  all  the  pride  and  treasure  of  the  world. 

"A  beautiful  evening!"  he  tossed  superbly  to  Mrs. 
Sterrett,  as  a  potentate  tosses  alms. 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  been  moved  to 
patronize  Mrs.  Sterrett;  though,  be  it  said  for  him, 
he  was  not  even  aware — in  his  momentary  exaltation 
— that  he  had  attempted  to  do  so. 


XIII 

T5UT  there  was  nothing  beggarly  about  Hrs.  Ster- 
•*-*  rett,  and  she  refused  Dunster's  careless  largesse 
with  her  customary  mild  dignity. 

"It'll  rain  before  morning,"  she  said,  her  quiet 
face — with  its  silvery,  evenly  parted  hair,  as  if  the 
Dove  of  Peace  had  clasped  it  with  half-folded  wings 
— serenely  uplifted. 

"  Tisn't  the  stars  I  tell  by,  Doctor,"— her  in 
variable  form  of  address  to  her  cherished  guest — 
"it's  my  finger-bones.  They're  better'n  a  Weather 
Bureau  to  me,  my  finger-bones  are.  I've  been  di- 
vidin'  my  pineys  all  afternoon,  so's  to  take  advan- 
tage." 

She  was  a  solitary  small-town  gentlewoman  of  reg 
ular  habits,  was  Mrs.  Sterrett — such  a  woman  as 
only  provincial  New  England  was  earlier  able  to 
produce, — and  she  was  not  by  nature  communica 
tive;  but  she  did  enjoy  a  little  dish  of  gossip  with 
Dunster  at  any  time.  He  reminded  her  of  what 
might  have  been,  and  was  the  best  substitute  which 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  67 

life  had  afforded  her;  for  she  was  now  seventy-two, 
having  survived  her  husband  over  forty,  and  her 
only  child — a  boy — over  thirty  years.  And  she  had 
been,  too,  throughout  this  long  lonely  period,  rather 
cut  off  from  the  usual  village  interests  and  contacts 
by  a  singular  loyalty.  Her  husband,  a  brilliant  and 
radical  young  lawyer-politician  whom  she  had  mar 
ried  in  open  defiance  of  family  and  friends,  was  still 
recalled  locally  as  "Satan  Sterrett" — a  name  which 
he  had  owed  solely  to  his  atheism,  too  openly  and 
sarcastically  proclaimed  in  a  Biblical  environment, 
and  at  a  period  when  far  milder  heresies  were  vis 
ited  by  the  most  rigorous  social  condemnation. 
While  Satan  Sterrett  lived,  his  wife  had  regularly 
attended  the  Sunday  and  weekday  meetings  of  the 
First  Unitarian  Church;  following  his  death  she  had 
withdrawn  from  that  congregation,  and  had  not  since 
been  known  to  enter  a  church  at  any  time.  It  was 
held  a  tragedy  that  she  should  have  lost  her  own 
faith  just  in  her  "hour  of  trial,"  when  it  must  have 
proved  "such  a  comfort  to  her";  but  Mrs.  Sterrett 
had  remained  implacably  reticent  in  this  matter  and 
had  patiently  gone  her  own  way  ever  since.  There 
can  be  little  doubt,  though,  that  this  quiet  withdrawal 
from  the  very  center  of  village  activity  had  weighted 
the  first  years  of  her  widowhood  with  double  lead. 
She  had  few  distractions.  Satan  Sterrett  had  left  her 
a  house,  a  child;  and  little  more.  When  the  child, 
too,  was  taken  (a  "judgment,"  some  whispered), 
only  the  house  remained.  That  it  was  scrupulously 
tended,  who  can  doubt?  She  had  done  "all  her  own 
work"  when  younger;  now  she  kept  but  one  servant, 
"Mysie"  (Artemisia),  a  middle-aged  moron,  subject 


68  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

to  epileptic  fits,  whom  she  had  long  befriended;  and, 
because  of  poor  Mysie's  limitations,  she  still  uncom 
plainingly  did  much  of  the  housework  herself. 

Michael,  a  superb  tawny  ucoon"  cat  with  topaz 
eyes,  had  crept  out  from  the  majestic  lilac  bushes 
flanking  the  small  entrance-porch  and  was  now,  with 
parabolic  spine,  rubbing  back  and  forth  against  his 
mistress'  skirts. 

"Won't  you  step  in,  Doctor,  and  sit  down  a  spell?" 
Mrs.  Sterrett  asked. 

"Isn't  it  rather  late  for  you?"  Dunster  returned, 
on  an  unforced  note  of  interest  and  affection.  "After 
all  that  heavy  gardening?"  His  momentary  poten 
tate-manner  had  vanished;  he  was  too  fond  of  Mrs. 
Sterrett  not  soon  and  easily,  in  her  presence,  to  for 
get  himself. 

"Well,  'tis,"  she  admitted.  "But  I'd  like  real  well 
to  hear  news  of  Miss  Ruth."  Dr.  Harrod — with 
practical  advice,  and  once  with  a  considerable  loan 
— had  unobtrusively  befriended  Mrs.  Sterrett  for 
many  years,  and  for  him  and  his  invalid  daughter  she 
had  an  unwavering  admiration.  "Was  it  a  nice  din 
ner?  But  of  course  'twas!" 

Preceded  by  Michael,  she  led  the  way  into  a 
broad,  bare  New  England  hall,  and  so  into  a  bare 
but  dignified  "front  parlor,"  with  its  single  lighted 
lamp  centred  on  a  round  table  with  a  dark  red  cover 
— the  table  itself  being  exactly  centred  in  the  square, 
formal  room.  A  sewing-basket,  with  genteel  "mend 
ing,"  was  on  the  table;  a  copy  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly;  and  a  small  vase  of  button-chrysanthe 
mums.  As  for  the  crayon  "enlargement"  of  Satan 
Sterrett  above  the  white  marble  mantel — surely  its 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  69 

silken  insipidity  did  not  do  him  justice!  .  .  .  But 
Dunster  was  quite  as  used  to  this  respectable  room 
as  his  landlady  and  felt  perfectly  at  home  in  it. 

"I  think  Miss  Harrod  must  be  improving,"  he 
said;  more  to  please  Mrs.  Sterrett  than  because  he 
felt  any  interest  in  Miss  Harrod' s  health. 

"Well,  it's  hard  to  say  why  she  shouldn't,  poor 
child — the  care  that's  taken.  I've  always  held  if 
she  married  and  had  a  family  of  her  own,  mebbe 
she'd  come  right  out  of  herself.  Not  that  she  broods 
much  or  fancies  things.  Miss  Ruth's  never  been  one 
to  complain.  But  I  suppose  likely  she'll  never  marry 
now — not  at  her  age.  The  President  would  be  lost 
without  her. — Does  he  seem  right  well,  too?" 

"Perfectly.  I  didn't  see  much  of  him.  Some  col 
lege  matter  came  up — he  had  to  leave  us." 

"You  and  Miss  Ruth?" 

"And" — he  just  hesitated — "Miss  Chenoworth. 
A  Freshman.  Dr.  Harrod  seems  to  have  taken  her 
under  his  wing." 

"Oh — was  she  there !"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Sterrett 
with  lively  interest.  "Well,  now  1  Miss  Ruth  called 
on  me  before  college  opened  and  told  me  about  her. 
Miss  Chenoworth's  father's  rich — and  writes  plays. 
I  guess  he's  kind  of  flighty,  too.  His  wife's  left  him 
— or  mebbe  he  left  her;  'tany  rate,  the  daughter 
stayed  on  with  him.  She  was  only  thirteen  when  that 
happened,  and  I  guess  Miss  Ruth  thinks  she's  done 
about  as  she  pleased  ever  since.  But  of  course  all 
Miss  Ruth  knew  then  was  what  the  President  wrote 
her." 

"Oh — wasn't  Miss  Harrod  with  her  father  last 
summer?  I  thought  they  always  .  .  ." 


70  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"So  they  always  have  before.  But  Miss  Ruth  de 
cided  this  year  she'd  a  call  to  visit  her  sisters  and 
get  more  acquainted  with  her  young  nephews  and 
nieces.  And  then  mebbe  she  thought  it'd  do  the 
President  good  to  get  off  by  himself  for  a  spell.  She 
says  it  worries  him  so  every  time  she  gets  overtired 
and  has  to  lay  by. — But  I  was  right  interested  about 
Miss  Chenoworth  .  .  ."  Mrs.  Sterrett  mildly  sug 
gested. 

"I  can  tell  you  one  thing,"  smiled  Dunster,  as  im 
personally  as  he  could,  "she's  been  giving  me  a  lot  of 
trouble  in  class.  But  she  seems  to  have  brains — and 
that's  always  something.  Meeting  her  like  this  to 
night,  I  liked  her  a  good  deal  better  than  I  thought 
I  would." 

"Is  she  real  pretty?" 

"Well" — Dunster  pursed  his  lips — "I  suppose 
she's  pretty  enough.  .  .  .  She  has  a  lot  of  style 
about  her;  but  she  overdresses — for  a  college  girl, 
I  mean.  She  looks  awfully  —  artificial,  some 
how.  ;  .  ." 

"Likely  she'll  tone  down  a  little  over  here,"  said 
Mrs.  Sterrett.  "I  will  say  for  Alden,  it  has  a  good 
sensible  influence  on  the  girls.  Not  but  they  seem 
flightier  nowadays  than  they  used  to!  Times  are 
changing,  I  s'pose.  But  " — she  unexpectedly  added 
— "why  shouldn't  they  change?  I'm  not  one  to 
stand  up  always  for  old  ways  and  notions.  The  good 
old  times  weren't  so  perfect  as  some  folks  try  to 
think.  And  'tisn't  as  if  girls  are  girls  more  than 
once  1" 

"Let  them  gather  their  rosebuds,  eh?  Is  that  it?" 
laughed  Dunster,  getting  to  his  feet.  "Oh — oh — 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  71 

Mrs.  Sterrett !  It's  a  good  thing  you're  not  one  of 
the  college  matrons !" 

"Perhaps  'tis,"  she  smiled  rather  wistfully  back. 
"I'm  right  sympathetic  with  young  things,  the  older 
I  grow. — And  when  you  marry  one  of  them,  Doc 
tor,  jest  you  remember  not  to  hold  too  tight  a  rein  I 
The  fun  goes  out  of  life  fast  'nough  for  most  folks 
.  .  .  without  chasin'  it  out.  Well,  good-night,  Doc 
tor.  For  a  young  man,  mebbe,  you're  too  serious- 
minded  yourself  sometimes?"  She  rose.  "So  don't 
you  be  too  hard  now  on  Miss  Chenoworth.  If  she's 
real  pretty,  I'd  like  right  well  to  see  her  some  time 
— and  look  at  her  clever  clothes." 

Directly  back  of  the  front  parlor  of  Mrs.  Ster- 
rett's  house  was  another  square  room  which,  though 
in  perfect  order,  was  always  kept  darkened  and  was 
never  for  any  social  purpose  used:  Satan  Sterrett's 
library  or  study — a  memorial  chamber.  His  heavy 
"debased  Empire"  mahogany  desk,  with  its  bird's- 
eye  maple  trimmings,  was  still  there;  his  walnut 
book-cases  with  locked  glass  doors ;  his  solemn,  solid 
books.  And  a  brass  spittoon  of  generous  size  still 
glimmered  beside  his  empty  wing-chair — mute  wit 
ness  to  an  obsolete  habit,  a  tobacco-chewing  genera 
tion.  ...  It  was  from  this  room  that  a  door  gave 
access  to  Dunster's  quarters,  opening  directly  into 
his  own,  less  sepulchral,  study.  The  memorial  cham 
ber  was,  in  fact,  the  one  interior  passageway  from 
Dunster's  suite  to  Mrs.  Sterrett's  apartments  and  the 
front  door.  Dunster  seldom  used  it,  however,  ex 
cept  at  meal  time,  when  he  passed  that  way  to  the 
dining-room  across  the  central  hall.  For  ordinary 


72  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

goings  and  comings  he  preferred  his  private  door 
way  giving  upon  the  garden. 

But  to-night,  on  leaving  Mrs.  Sterrett,  he  started 
direct  for  his  study,  passing  down  the  central  hall 
and  so  into  the  dark  memorial  chamber,  with  its  fa 
miliar,  faintly  musty  smell.  Dunster  had  never  much 
liked  this  chamber;  while  crossing  it  he  was  always, 
rather  irritatingly,  aware  of  a  slight,  a  very  slight 
sense  of  discomfort.  It  did  not  please  him  to  be  even 
slightly  apprehensive  in  just  that  way;  he  held  it  un 
manly.  Not,  of  course,  that  he  had  ever  been  afraid 
— nor  was  he  now;  yet  he  quickened  his  step — and, 
doing  so,  his  foot  struck  something  at  once  firm  and 
soft;  something  rather  horrible.  He  stumbled;  he 
almost  fell;  his  heart  stopped,  then  crazily  pounded. 
Tremulous,  with  quaking  jaw,  he  gulped  for  air, 
while  his  fingers  fumbled  for  and  clumsily  lighted  a 
match.  .  .  .  He  was  glad  then,  at  least,  that  he  had 
been  able  to  keep  himself  from  crying  out.  Having 
deviated  a  trifle  from  the  straight  course  to  his  door, 
he  had  kicked  the  old-fashioned  "hassock"  lying  be 
fore  Satan  Sterrett's  easy-chair.  .  .  . 

The  incident  was  nothing  in  itself;  yet  it  had  just 
this  seemingly  unimportant  effect  upon  Dunster,  that, 
when  the  match  flickered  out,  he  deliberately  felt  for 
Satan  Sterrett's  wing-chair  and  seated  himself  in  it. 
He  did  not  consciously  admit  that  his  purpose  in  do 
ing  so  was  to  re-establish  his  belief  in  himself — or, 
more  accurately,  in  his  destiny,  his  lucky  star.  Prob 
ably  he  did  not  at  all  sense  the  atavism  of  his  strange 
act,  or  suspect  that  a  subliminal  Demon  was  trying 
thus  to  "make  magic" — trying  to  establish  contact 
with  and  control  over  the  Powers  of  Darkness 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  73 

through  the  sympathetic  mediumship  of  Satan  Ster- 
rett's  chair.  Why  should  a  reasonable  being  sus 
pect  himself  of  harboring  and,  much  less,  of  being 
moved  by  the  Irrational,  the  Primitive,  the  Absurd? 
Nevertheless,  some  hidden  need  must  have  been  sat 
isfied  by  his  odd,  impulsive  action;  for  Dunster  rose 
presently  from  Satan  Sterrett's  chair,  in  that  black 
memorial  chamber,  tranquil — determined. 

Yes ;  he  would  marry  Lilia  Chenoworth.  And  all 
that  he  most  desired  would  follow.  The  triumph 
was  appointed.  He  was  to  have  his  magnificent  day. 


XIV 

THE  technique  of  the  film  will  prove  convenient: 
a  "flash-back"  is  indicated. 

Dunster  has  just  departed  from  the  President's 
house ;  Lilia  has  turned  to  Dr.  Harrod  with  wicked 
eyes.  "Match-maker — /" 

But  Dr.  Harrod  did  not  in  any  sense  react  to 
Lilia's  mischievous  challenge ;  for  him  now  it  was  as 
if  it  had  not  occurred.  His  eyes — as  she  was  in 
stantly,  apprehensively  aware — were  resting  upon 
her  with  a  grave,  troubled  pity.  It  was  not  to  Lilia 
he  spoke.  "Ruth  dear,"  he  said,  "perhaps  you  had 
better  inform  Lilia.  I'll  step  out  for  a  little  .  .  .  ." 
He  walked  from  the  room.  Ruth,  meanwhile,  had 
taken  Lilia's  hand  in  hers. 

"It's  your  mother,"  she  began  quietly.  "Some 
how  she  has  discovered  you  here  at  Alden.  .  .  .  She 
means  to  make  trouble,  I'm  afraid." 

Every  drop  of  blood  had  left  Lilia's  face.     The 


74  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

discreet  artificial  bloom  on  her  cheeks  was  given  a 
shocking  relief,  stood  out  sharp  and  grotesque — like 
the  flat  patches  of  rouge  on  the  chalk-white  face  of 
a  clown. 

Some  moments  later  these  girls  were  seated  close 
together  on  a  low  settee  in  a  shadowy  corner  of  the 
great  living-room.  "She  told  father,"  Ruth  was 
courageously  explaining,  "that  she  was  never  mar 
ried  to  Anson  Ghenoworth.  She  showed  him  a  let 
ter  from  your  father — an  old  one — which  seems  to 
confirm  this.  She  says  she  can  establish  the  fact  that 
you  are  an  illegitimate  child,  and" — Ruth  caught  at 
a  weary,  difficult  breath — "and  that  Anson  Cheno- 
worth  is  not  even  your  natural  father.  .  .  ." 

"It  isn't  true,  Ruth.  ...  I  happen  to  know  I'm 
illegitimate — if  it  has  to  be  called  that.  .  .  .  But 
Anson  Chenoworth  is  my  father!" 

Ruth's  breathing  was  lengthened  now  and  again 
by  involuntary  sighs  of  utter  fatigue ;  her  eyes  were 
leaden-circled;  yet  she  continued  to  speak  sensibly 
and  quietly. 

"The  whole  thing  is  monstrous  .  .  .  against  all 
natural  right  and  feeling!  I  believe  the  woman  is 
somehow  deranged.  Surely  no  sane  mother  would 
come  to — to  strangers — with  such  a  story !  And  de 
liberately  threaten  to  publish  it — everywhere — to  the 
whole  world,  if " 

"If ?"  Lilia  faintly  caught  her  up.  "If  what, 

please,  Miss  Harrod?" 

"If,"  Ruth  answered,  "you  and  your  father  do  not 
immediately  arrange  certain  matters  to  her  satisfac 
tion." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  75 

"Certain  matters ?" 

Ruth  shook  her  head.  "She  was  rather  vague, 
there — purposely  so,  I  think." 

"But  why,"  wailed  Lilia,  "did  she  bring  all  this  to 
poor  Dr.  Harrod!  Why  didn't  she  come  to  me?" 
Then,  before  Ruth  could  respond,  she  burst  forth: 
"Oh!  it's  all  clear  enough — too  clear!  She  wanted 
to  begin  by  frightening  me — wanted  to  show  that 
nothing  would  stop  her  if  I'm  not  ready  to  knuckle 
down  and  beg  father  to  do  exactly  as  she  says !  .  .  . 
Oh,  Miss  Harrod  —  how  can  I  live  in  the  same 
world  with  her — in  the  same  world  with  a  mother 
like  that !  No  wonder  I'm  what  I  am !" 

She  slid  to  her  knees  and  drooped  forward  into 
Ruth  Harrod's  lap,  burying  her  face;  her  whole 
slight  body  was  tossed  on  great  wave-like  sobs  which 
she  visibly  fought  and  tried  to  conquer.  Ruth,  reck 
less  of  her  own  ebbing  vitality,  mothered  her; 
strengthened  her. 

Dr.  Harrod,  returning,  needed  but  a  glance  at 
Ruth's  face.  "You  must  go  straight  to  bed,  precious. 
Thank  you  for  helping  me — and  Lilia.  But  there's 
nothing  more  we  can  do  to-night.  I've  arranged  for 
a  meeting  with  Mrs.  Chenoworth — as  she  still  calls 
herself — to-morrow,  at  noon.  She's  coming  then  to 
my  office — and  I  promised  her  Lilia  would  be  there. 
I'll  walk  home  with  Lilia  presently.  Good-night, 
darling.  .  .  .  Don't  even  think  of  getting  up  for 
breakfast  with  me !" 

The  girls  had  risen.  Lilia  was  calm  again,  but 
still  clung  to  Ruth's  hand ;  and  now,  impulsively,  she 
raised  it  to  her  lips,  kissed  it,  and  for  a  moment  laid 
a  no  longer  faultless  cheek  against  it.  "Good-night 


76  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

.  .  .  oh,  I  can't  call  you  Miss  Harrod  any  more! 
.  .  .  good-night,  Ruth.  I  love  you  so  much — and 
the  first  thing  I've  done  is  to  wear  you  out.  I  won't 
let  it  happen  again,  Dr.  Harrod — ever.  I  won't  be 
a  burden  to  either  of  you — to  anyone.  I'll  stand  on 
my  own  feet." 

Ruth  smiled  valiantly.  "Lilia — you  heart-break 
ing  child !  As  if  you  hadn't  always  had  to  stand  on 
your  own  feet — so  bravely.  Father's  told  me  a  thing 
or  two.  Good-night,  everybody.  We'll  work  things 
out  between  us  to  a  good  end,  won't  we !  And  I'm 
not  nearly  so  done-up  as  I  always  stupidly  manage  to 
look.  You  know  that,  father."  She  went  from  them 
with  a  light,  brisk  step ;  it  was  not  until  she  had  passed 
from  sight  that  she  clung  to  the  stair-rail  for  some 
moments,  dizzily — then  slowly,  very  slowly,  dragged 
herself  up  the  stairs. 

"Now,  Lilia,"  suggested  Dr.  Harrod,  "say  any 
thing  you  wish  to  say  to  me,  child.  You  had  better 
be  perfectly  frank.  Your  mother's  action  and  threats 
to-night  make  it  imperative  for  me  to  ask  you 


trust  me." 


"You  know  I  do ! — And  I  see  what  a  dreadful  po 
sition  father  and  I  have  put  you  in.  But  Dr.  Har 
rod — father  doesn't  know  that  /  know  he  was  never 
married  to  my  mother.  It's  too  long  a  story  to  tell 
you  now  ...  I  mean,  the  way  I  discovered  that — 
and  why  I  decided  not  to  say  anything  about  it  to 
father.  We're  a  horrible  family,  aren't  we!  But 
poor  mother's  the  worst  of  us.  ...  Oh — think  of 
my  having  to  say  that! — but  it's  true. — Is  she  as 
beautiful  as  she  used  to  be?" 

Dr.  Harrod  managed  to  smile.    "I  can  hardly  an- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  77 

swer  that.  She's  still,  in  her  way,  a  handsome  woman 
— or  might  be."  He  paused.  "And  now — just  one 
question,  Lilia — then  I  must  take  you  home. — What 
do  you  suppose  her  motive  to  be,  in  all  this?  What's 
she  after?" 

"Everything!" 

"Which  means—?" 

"I  don't  quite  know!"  cried  Lilia.  "That's  what 
I've  first  to  find  out.  I  must. — But  she  shan't  use 
me  to  strike  at  father!" 

"Nor  me — to  strike  at  anybody,"  said  Dr.  Har- 
rod.  "I'm  glad  you  feel  that  way,  Lilia.  And  I 
reckon,"  he  added,  quaintly,  "we've  just  about  spunk 
enough  between  us  to  handle  your  mother.  .  .  . 
Now  come  along,  my  dear." 


XV 

"IT/HEN  he  had  passed  from  the  memorial  cham- 
*  *  ber  and  lighted  the  lamp  in  his  study,  Dun- 
ster  started  on  into  his  bedroom  to  remove  his  col 
lar  and  stiff  shirt  and  get  into  an  ancient  bath-robe 
and  slippers.  He  wanted  to  sit  down  quietly  in 
bachelor  comfort,  light  his  pipe,  and  think  things 
through — with  persistence  and  concentration.  But 
as  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  his  bedroom  he  was 
aware  of  a  light  tapping — an  unobtrusive  sound  he 
could  not  immediately  interpret.  He  halted — alertly 
attentive.  .  .  .  The  sound  had  ceased,  but  presently 
it  was  repeated.  It  had  a  stealthy  quality.  .  .  . 
Yes;  someone  was  tapping,  with  cautious  knuckles, 
at  the  garden  door;  and  Dunster  was  something  more 


78  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

than  astonished.  He  had  few  visitors  at  any  time. 
No  one  ever  came  to  his  rooms  so  late.  Completely 
puzzled,  he  hesitated.  .  .  .  Then,  inconsequently 
enough,  it  flashed  upon  him  with  what  decision  Lilia 
had,  that  evening,  crossed  to  the  push-button  of  an 
electric  bell  and  firmly  pressed  it.  He  went  straight 
to  the  door. 

"I  must  see  you  a  moment,"  a  restrained  voice 
said.  It  was  Lilians  voice. 

"Are  you  out  of  your  senses?" 

"No.  Don't  say  stupid  things.  .  .  .  Something 
has  happened.  I'm  in  a  wretched  situation.  I  need 
your  help — now." 

The  reined-in  tautness  of  her  simple  words,  her 
manner,  thrilled  through  Dunster,  involving  him  in 
stantly  in  a  dense  atmosphere  of  apprehension.  He 
was  afraid  for  her  and  with  her,  though  he  knew  not 
why.  "Wait,"  he  muttered.  "We  can't  talk  here. 
I'll  get  my  hat  and  coat.  We  can  go  down  along  the 
river,  I  suppose,  safely  enough." 

"But  I'm  half-frozen,"  pleaded  the  girl.  "Just 
let  me  step  inside  a  few  minutes.  ...  I  won't 
frighten  you  very  long." 

Reluctantly,  he  gave  way  before  her.  She  stepped 
quickly  into  his  shadowy  bedroom  and  herself  very 
softly  drew  in  the  door. 

"Mother  has  turned  up.  .  .  .  Dr.  Harrod  told 
me  after  you  left.  That's  what  kept  him — and  Miss 
Harrod.  They  told  me  after  you  left." 

Dunster  was  nonplussed.  By  slender  rays  sifting 
in  from  the  study  through  almost  closed  portieres 
he  could  just  make  out  that  Lilia  was  shivering  be 
neath  the  long,  light  cape  she  had  thrown  over  her 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  79 

shoulders.  "You're  cold,"  he  asserted  crossly. 
"That  cape's  too  thin  for  these  fall  nights.  You 
ought  to  know  better."  He  wheeled  as  he  spoke, 
stepping  quickly  through  to  the  study  and  grabbing 
up  his  overcoat  from  the  scroll-backed  sofa — one  of 
Mrs.  Sterrett's  heirlooms — which  stiffly  furnished 
one  corner  of  the  room.  It  startled  him  to  find  that 
Lilia  had  followed  him;  the  shades  were  not  drawn 
down.  "Here,"  he  said,  "put  that  on!" — thrusting 
the  coat  almost  roughly  upon  her;  then,  in  three 
strides  on  the  balls  of  his  feet,  he  got  to  the  windows 
and  lowered  the  dark-green  shades.  "Have  you  no 
prudence  at  all?"  he  babbled.  "What  explanation 
could  I  make?" 

She  was  scornful  with  him.  "Do  you  feel  very 
wicked?  You've  only  to  tell  the  truth — if  you're 
caught.  Say  I  forced  my  way  in  here.  I'll  admit 
to  anything  you  like." 

"I  was  thinking  of  you,"  he  lied. 

She  acknowledged  his  lie  with  the  slightest  shrug; 
then  dropped  his  overcoat  to  the  seat  of  the  couch 
and  started  back  toward  the  bedroom. 

Dunster  was  instantly  beside  her.  "Wait! — you 
don't  understand.  If  you're  really  in  trouble  I  want 
to  help  you — do  anything  I  can.  But  for  heaven's 
sake  be  a  little  reasonable!  This  isn't  the  way  to 
keep  out  of  trouble — risking  things  like  this.  .  .  . 
And  for  what !  Why  should  your  mother's  coming 
upset  you  so?" 

"That's  what  I  came  to  tell  you,"  she  answered. 
"But  if  you're  afraid—?" 

He  was  blocking  the  way  now;  squarely  before 
her.  "I'm  not  a  coward.  It  isn't  cowardly,  is  it,  to 


80  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

try  not  to  be  a  fool — ?     Now  go  on,  please;  I  in 
sist." 

For  the  first  time  in  all  their  many  strange  con 
flicts  her  eyes  fell  before  his.  uOh,  yes — I  do  lack 
common  sense/'  she  said.  She  was  managing  to 
speak  quietly  enough,  but  Dunster  was  aware  of — 
and  immensely  moved  by — the  effort  it  cost  her. 
"You're  quite  right  to  be  upset — angry  with  me," 
she  continued.  "I  can't  imagine  what  made  me  turn 
to  you — impulsively,  like  this.  Our  talk  this  evening, 
I  suppose.  .  .  ."  Suddenly  she  lifted  her  eyes;  gave 
him  a  full,  open  look.  "Oh!"  she  cried,  "I'm 
ashamed  now  of  being  here — but  I'm  more  ashamed 
of  lying  to  myself !  I  shall  have  to  leave  Alden  any 
way — perhaps  to-morrow.  For  Dr.  Harrod's  sake, 
if  not  for  my  own.  Mother's  coming  settles  that. 
.  .  .  And  I've  never  liked  you,  really,  or  trusted 
you — but  can't  you  feel  I'm  in  love  with  you !  I've 
never  been  in  love  before  ...  I  hate  it.  As  for 
my  being  here,  asking  you  to  help  me — well,  it's  all 
a  fake !  I  see  that  now.  Nobody  can  help  me — you 
least  of  all.  I  came  because  I  was  damned  unhappy 
and  wanted  to  be  near  you.  That  isn't  what  I  told 
myself,  but  it  must  be  why  I  came.  .  .  .  And  I 
know  you're  in  love  with  me — of  course  I  know  it. 
But  you  don't  like  me  or  trust  me,  any  more  than  I 
do  you.  Why  should  you?  I'm  a  horrible  person, 
with  a  horrible  family  back  of  me.  That's  all — Yes; 
that's  all.  .  .  .  You'll  get  over  it,  you  know — just 
as  I  shall,  once  I'm  away. — But  you're  rather  hor 
rible  yourself.  .  .  ." 

Swiftly,  a  shadow  among  shadows,  she  slipped  by 
him — got  to  the  door.    Before  she  could  open  it,  his 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  81 

arms   were   about  her.      "Lilia — ?"      And  again: 
"Lilia — ?     I  want  you.  ...  I  want  you  to  marry 


me." 


She  did  not  yield  to  him ;  did  not  struggle  to  free 
herself;  did  not  reply.  Simply,  she  stood  quite  still. 
Dunster's  arms  slowly  loosened,  dropped  to  his  sides. 
He,  too,  was  still.  An  incredible  stillness,  an  un 
breakable  silence  enveloped  them,  blotted  them  out. 
And  it  seemed  to  Dunster,  at  last,  that  Lilians  voice 
had  reached  him  across  infinite  spaces. 

"My  mother  wasn't  married  to  my  father — and, 
far  worse,  she's  a  bad  lot  all  through.  So  perhaps 
I  take  after  her.  I'm  illegitimate— do  you  under 
stand?  .  .  .  Well,  Professor  Thorpe,  are  you  so 
sure  now  you  want  me  to  marry  you  ?  .  .  .  What  a 
responsibility!  .  .  .  What  would  become  of  your 
career!" 

"Lilia  I"  he  protested,  seizing  her  hands — "I 
don't  care  a  hang  about  my  career  or  anything  but 
you!" 

As  he  spoke,  her  hands  were  sharply  withdrawn. 
"Tell  me  that  to-morrow,"  she  said.  "But  you  won't 
have  to  tell — I  shall  know. — I  do  know."  Then 
Lilia  quietly  opened  the  door,  stepped  down  into 
the  mist-filled  garden,  drifted  into  the  mist  and 
away.  .  .  . 

He  would  have  followed  her — at  least,  he  was 
able  later  to  convince  himself  that  he  was  just  on  the 
point  of  sharp  pursuit — if  Mrs.  Sterrett's  voice  had 
not  come  to  him  from  his  study  doorway;  come  to 
him  high-pitched,  tremulous,  but  imperative.  "Doc 
tor — I'll  be  obliged  to  you  for  a  word — at  once, 
please!" 


82  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

If  his  much-loved  landlady  had  discharged  a  pis 
tol  at  his  back  she  could  not  more  thoroughly  have 
demoralized  him.  And  self-protection  is  said  to  be 
the  first  law  of  nature.  Dunster  almost  threw  him 
self  upon  the  knob  of  his  garden  door,  and  drew  the 
door  shut  with  a  jarring  bang. 


XVI 

|*T  was  slow-witted  Mysie,  coming  home  from  an 
•*•  evening  at  the  movies  (satisfactorily  thrilling, 
and  nicely  adjusted  to  her  limitations),  who,  in  pass 
ing  around  the  house  to  the  kitchen  door,  had 
glanced  through  the  lighted  windows  of  "the  Per- 
fesser's  room,"  and  had  then  stood  rooted  and  gaping 
with  delicious  horror  at  the  climactic  picture  within. 
The  scene  was  entirely  familiar  to  her  and  could 
bear  but  one  interpretation.  A  beautiful  young  girl 
lured  to  a  bachelor's  quarters,  late — well,  later'n 
she'd  ( Mysie )  told  missus  she'd  be — at  night.  Dun 
ster  had  just  thrown  his  overcoat  across  Lilia's 
shoulders  as  Mysie  halted,  round-eyed,  with  hang 
ing  jaw.  Unhappily,  the  Perfesser  had  then  leaped 
to  the  windows  and  pulled  down  the  shades.  .  .  . 
Poor  Mysie,  this  many  a  day,  had  been  casting  oaf's 
eyes  at  the  young  Perfesser,  whose  rooms  she  cared 
for;  though  her  secret  glances  had  not  been  charged 
with  undue  emotion,  since  she  obscurely  knew  that 
such  as  her  was  not  for  such  as  him.  A  dull  throb 
of  middle-aged  jealousy  was  now,  however,  added 
to  her  first  instinctive  reaction;  she  felt  it  was  up  to 
her  to  expose  a  smooth  villain,  and  to  save  the  lovely 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  83 

heroine's  honor  at  any  cost.  With  surprising  speed 
she  lumbered  on  to  the  kitchen  door  and  was  pres 
ently  rattling  the  doorknob  of  Mrs.  Sterrett's  bed 
room,  where — her  astonished  mistress  having  ap 
peared — she  gasped  out  a  melodramatic  tale  and  a 
somewhat  incoherent  plea  for  action. 

It  was  Mrs.  Sterrett's  natural  impression  that 
Mysie  was  suffering  from  some  new  kind  of  "at 
tack,"  due  doubtless  to  an  evening  of  too  sustained 
excitement;  but  she  felt  that  she  ought  at  once  to 
exonerate  the  Doctor  from  any  connection  with  her 
stricken  handmaid's  delusions.  Therefore,  in  gray 
flannel  wrapper  and  felt  bedroom-slippers,  she  de 
scended  the  stairs,  followed  at  the  heels  by  Mysie, 
and  passed  through  the  memorial  chamber  to  the 
Doctor's  door.  And  there,  to  her  sorrowful  dis 
may,  and  while  she  still  hesitated,  she  unmistakably 
caught  a  wordless  murmur  that  had  in  it  nothing  of 
the  masculine.  Was  it  possible!  The  Doctor! — 
What  was  it  her  immediate  duty  to  do  ? 

She  began  by  packing  Mysie  off  upstairs  to  her 
room,  with  a  strict  injunction  to  stay  there.  She 
then  walked  firmly  to  Dunster's  door,  tried  the  knob, 
opened  the  door  a  crack,  and — without  attempting 
to  look  within — launched  at  the  Doctor  the  words 
which  had  so  completely  demoralized  that  nervously 
organized  young  man.  But  Mrs.  Sterrett,  poor  lady, 
for  all  her  summoned  indignation,  was  herself  more 
or  less  completely  demoralized;  and,  as  the  garden 
door  slammed,  she  gave  a  brief,  high-pitched  cryr 
....  Thus,  when  Dunster  and  his  landlady  at  last 
confronted  one  another  at  the  threshold  of  the  me 
morial  chamber,  it  would  have  been  difficult  for  an 


84  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

observant  neutral  to  decide  which  of  them  revealed 
most  plainly  the  outward  signs  of  a  ravaging  inward 
storm. 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Sterrett! — no  wonder  you're  up 
set  !  You  can't  be  more  so  than  I  am !  This  is  the 
most  extraordinary  thing  that  has  ever  happened  to 
me  in  all  my  experience  as  a  teacher !  Please  come 
in  and  sit  down.  ...  I  want  to  consult  you,  if 
you'll  let  me — just  as  if  I  were  your  son. — This  is 
a  very  serious  business,  Mrs.  Sterrett.  I  should  have 
gone  to  you  at  once,  in  any  case  ...  I  daren't  act 
alone.  You  can't  imagine  how  I  need  your  sym 
pathy  and  advice!" 

A  recording  mortal  wonders  whether  the  Record 
ing  Angel  in  person  could  wholly  disentangle  the  in 
stinctive  truth  from  the  instinctive  self-sheltering 
strokes  of  policy  in  such  a  speech.  For  man  is  in 
deed  the  paragon  of  animals — in  so  many  subtle, 
simian  ways.  Verily,  no  mere  banker's  system  of 
double — triple — quadruple  entry  can  ever  have  suf 
ficed  for  the  Books  of  the  Recording  Angel;  and 
how  even  a  trial  balance  is  at  last  to  be  struck  from 
them  is  a  speculation  to  corrode  the  brazen  cheeks 
of  Metaphysics  herself. 

But  it  was  evident  that  Mrs.  Sterrett  had  been 
poignantly  moved  by  Dunster's  appeal.  A  bright 
spot  had  come  into  either  cheek,  an  unmistakable 
glow  into  her  muted  eyes.  As  for  Dunster,  one  must 
at  least  be  fair  to  him.  He  was  genuinely  fond  of 
his  landlady;  he  did  feel  the  need  of  sympathy  and 
advice.  And  he  had  in  no  way  made  up  his  mind 
to  a  deliberate  course  of  evasion  and  deceit.  He 
had,  indeed,  made  up  his  mind  to  nothing.  It  was 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  85 

secretly  made  up  for  him,  in  some  portion  of  his 
psychic  being  far  below  the  threshold  of  conscious 
will.  His  talk  with  Mrs.  Sterrett  proved  the  purest 
improvisation,  prompted  at  every  point  by  her  im 
mediate  reaction  to  the  words  he  uttered.  That 
Conscienceless  Thing  in  us  that  fights  mercilessly 
against  pain,  or  the  merest  personal  inconvenience, 
simply  took  the  helm  and  steered  for  quieter  waters. 
It  was  not  for  some  hours  after  Mrs.  Sterrett  had 
left  him  that  Dunster  quite  made  out  how  subtle  and 
hypocritical  a  protective  web  his  tongue  had  been 
weaving  between  him  and  the  too-menacing  circum 
stances  closing  about  him. 

He  had  begun  by  telling  Mrs.  Sterrett  —  as  if 
making  a  clean  breast  of  a  disagreeable  experience 
— that  one  of  his  more  difficult  students — "highly 
strung,  you  know,  Mrs.  Sterrett;  abnormal,  really" 
— had  persuaded  herself  that  she  was  desperately  in 
love  with  him.  "I  suppose  that  such  things  are  bound 
to  happen,  occasionally,  in  a  place  like  this;  one 
hears  of  instances.  .  .  ."  For  some  time,  he  ad 
mitted,  and  with  increasing  discomfort,  he  had  been 
conscious  of  what  he  could  only  call  (while  his  un 
comfortable  smile  asked  for  a  frank  grasping  of  a 
difficult  position)  this  girl's  marked  attentions. 
"You've  no  idea,  Mrs.  Sterrett,  what  self-contempt 
a  situation  like  that  can  bring  to  any  more  or  less 
decent  sort  of  man!"  He  had  naturally  done  all  he 
could  to  discourage  the  girl.  "But  no  doubt  I  was 
awkward;  said  pretty  much  the  wrong  things.  A 
man's  bound  to  put  his  foot  in  it,  where  a  woman 
would  easily  feel  her  way."  Mrs.  Sterrett  murmured 
assent.  She  could  understand,  she  felt,  a  silly  girl 


86  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

going  quite  shamelessly  off  her  head  for  so  splendid 
a  young  man — at  once  so  intellectual  and  so  whole 
some  and  fine  in  grain. 

"Poor  creature!  So  that's  it!  Poor  Dr. 
Thorpe — !  .  .  .  But  the  child  must  be  beside  her 
self — coming  straight  to  you  here!" 

"That's  precisely  what  I'm  afraid  of,  you  see. 
I  didn't  dare  play  the  schoolmaster.  For  the  time 
being  she's  beyond  reach  of  rebukes  or  penalties.  I 
had  to  reason  with  her — appeal  to  her  better  nature. 
But  I'm  certain  I  made  a  mess  of  it.  ...  Why, 
simply  to  get  rid  of  her  with  any  kindness,  I  had  to 
promise  to  talk  with  her  soon  again  at  a  more  suit 
able  place  and  time.  You  can't  imagine  how  I  dread 
that  ordeal.  But  of  course,  the  whole  situation — 
well,  it's  impossible!  My  duty  to  the  college  en 
ters  in,  too.  .  .  .  Oh,  good  heavens,  Mrs.  Sterrett 
— it's  a  miserable  business  altogether!  Can  you 
think  of  anything — guide  me?  If  it's  possible  to 
help  it,  I  don't  want  to  make  this  a  college  matter 
at  all.  It  isn't  a  college  matter.  And  I  honestly 
want  to  save  this  girl  from  even  a  shadow  of  humil 
iation." 

Mrs.  Sterrett  bobbed  her  head,  decisively.  "That's 
the  point,  Doctor,  as  I  see  it.  That's  how  I'd  of 
liked  my  own  son  to  feel.  The  girl's  to  blame  for 
coming  here ;  I  won't  excuse  her.  But  some  feelings 
are  mighty  strong.  .  .  .  Well,  I  want  to  help  you, 
Doctor,  if  it's  given  me — but  I'd  like  special  to  help 
her.  Since  you're  to  meet  her  again  private  any 
way,  you  bring  that  poor  lamb  right  straight  here 
somehow  to  me.  I'll  talk  to  her;  and  nothing'll  go 
beyond  my  lips — that  you  may  be  sure!" 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  87 

Caution  —  danger  ahead!  The  Conscienceless 
Thing  in  him,  like  the  wary  savage  it  is,  froze  to  an 
alert  attention.  Traps  and  springes — no  thorough 
fare!  A  soft  treading  backward  now,  and  so 
around.  .  .  . 

"Yes;  if  only  it  can  be  managed — discreetly.  .  .  . 
It's  splendid  of  you — just  like  you — to  make  such 
an  offer.  But  it  would  let  you  in  for  so  much. — 
No,  I'm  not  sure  it  would  be  fair  to  you — and  per 
haps  not  quite  fair  to  Miss  ...  to  the  girl?  I 
must  think  it  over,  and  over  again,  Mrs.  Sterrett; 
feel  my  way.  Still,  it  may  be  the  best  thing — the 
only  thing.  It's  certainly  the  most  generous!" 

There.  For  the  immediate  moment  it  could  be 
dropped;  and  now  perhaps  it  would  be  wiser  if  this 
interview  could  be  quietly  closed. 

"Let's  sleep  on  it — shall  we?  I  simply  can't  tell 
you  what  this  talk  has  meant  to  me.  The  whole 
thing's  as  difficult  as  ever,  I  suppose — but  at  least  I 
feel  you  near  me.  I'm  not  alone  with  it  all." 

Once  more  at  the  threshold  of  the  memorial  cham 
ber,  Mrs.  Sterrett  pressed  Dunster's  hand  quietly 
between  her  thin,  corded  hands  with  the  brown 
mottlings  of  age  upon  them.  She  would  have  liked 
it  if  he  had  stooped  and  kissed  her.  But  Dunster, 
as  usual,  was  thinking  of  himself.  .  .  .  And  if  any 
reader,  at  this  point,  feels  inclined  to  reach  for  a 
stone,  may  a  recorder  suggest  that  he  or  she  pause 
to  reflect  a  little  before  hurling  it  in  the  indicated 
direction. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


XVII 

"qpHATyou,  Lilia?" 

*  With  her  usual  swift  deftness,  Lilia  had 
mounted  the  apple  tree  and  the  fire-escape  and  was 
slipping  through  the  dark  study  toward  her  bedroom 
when  Idabelle  called  to  her  on  a  hushed,  tentative 
note — confidence  just  tinged  with  alarm. 

"Yes.  I  was  out  too  long.  I'm  half  frozen. 
Good-night,  Idabelle." 

But  Idabelle,  in  a  hastily  snatched  kimono,  ap 
peared  as  a  gray  blur  in  the  doorway  of  the  double 
bedroom  occupied  by  Myrtle  and  herself.  Myrtle's 
stressed,  rhythmic  breathing— which  it  would  per 
haps  be  unchivalrous  otherwise  to  name — could  be 
distinctly  heard;  yet  Idabelle  moved  cautiously  and 
spoke  softly.  "I  thought  you'd  never  come  home. 
No;  I  haven't  been  asleep;  I've  been  lying  awake — 
doing  your  thinking  for  you.  Wait  a  mo ;  I'll  come 
into  your  room.  Generally  you  couldn't  wake  up 
Myrt  with  an  axe — but  you  never  can  tell." 

Together,  the  girls  entered  Lilia's  black  and — 
at  this  hour — creepingly  cold  little  room.  Idabelle 
closed  the  door.  Invisible  to  each  other,  they — as 
by  common  impulse — felt  their  way  to  Lilia's  bed 
and  curled  up  side  by  side  upon  it,  drawing  the  down 
comforter  up  to  their  chins.  Lilia  shivered;  her 
teeth  were  on  the  point  of  chattering.  She  braced 
herself,  and  wrapped  the  light  cape  about  her  bare 
arms  beneath  the  comforter. 

"So  I've  been  caught  at  last?"  she  managed,  con 
trolling  by  a  sharp  effort  of  will  the  quavering  mus- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  89 

cles  of  her  jaw.  Idabelle  must  not  think  her  sud 
denly  afraid.  "Well,  it  doesn't  matter  much — now." 

"The  dickens  it  doesn't  matter!  Carrie" — Miss 
Carrington,  matron  of  Apsley  Hall — "tapped  at 
the  door  not  twenty  minutes  after  you  left  us.  I 
knew  her,  of  course.  Nobody  else  'taps'  like  that, 
as  if  she  were  giving  a  lesson  in  deportment.  So  I 
told  Myrt  to  keep  her  feet  to  herself,  for  once ;  I'd 
do  the  talking.  Well,  the  minute  I  let  Carrie  >n,  she 
asked  for  you." 

"Kind  of  her,"  murmured  Lilia. 

"Wasn't  it!  But  I  laughed  and  spoke  right  up, 
cocky  as  anything !  I  said  you  were  in  the  bath-tub. 
.  .  .  No  go!  I  didn't  need  a  blue-print  after  that. 
The  bath-tub  didn't  get  by  with  Carrie — not  for  a 
minute.  You  know  the  way  she  opens  and  shuts  her 
mouth  when  she's  on  to  you — just  like  a  dying  fish. 
Woof!  Maybe  I  wasn't  sick,  sore  and  disabled!" 
Being  a  good,  but  malicious,  mimic,  Idabelle  now 
rendered  Miss  Carrington's  response  quietly,  but 
with  due  exaggeration  and  private  gusto.  '  'My 
dear  Miss  Hecksher — I  never  thought  to  hear  from 
your  lips — from  the  lips  of  one  of  my  girls — a  de 
liberate  perversion  of  truth!  Mr.  Gurney  has  but 
a  moment  since  telephoned  me.  He  is  certain  he 
passed  Miss  Chenoworth  just  as  she  was  leaving  the 
campus  by  the  Dearborn  Memorial  Gateway.  He 
spoke  to  her,  but  she  did  not  reply — she  hurried 
on.  Mr.  Gurney  quite  properly  felt  it  would  be 
undignified  to  pursue  her,  preferring  to  report  the 
infraction  to  me. — And  what,  may  one  ask,  does  this 
amazing  infraction  mean,  Miss  Hecksher?  I  in 
sist  upon  a  detailed  reply.'  " 


90  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Idabelle  felt  her  hands  gripped  in  the  darkness. 
"I  did  pass  someone;  but  it  was  so  misty  and  dark 
— I  couldn't  possibly  have  told  who  it  was.  And 
I'm  almost  sure  he  didn't  speak.  How  did  he  know 


me!' 


"Well,  he  did — that's  the  main  trouble.  Just 
like  him  not  to  dare  tackle  you  himself — the  little 
sneak!" 

"Oh,  I'm  so  sorry — for  your  sake !  Carrie's  cer 
tain  to  make  it  hot  for  you.  Truly,  Idabelle,  I  don't 
care  in  the  least — except  for  you." 

"Shucks.  I'm  all  right.  I  'fessed  up — had  to. 
...  I  said  you'd  dropped  a  silk  scarf  on  your  way 
back  from  Prexy's  and  had  gone  to  look  for  it.  Myrt 
near  fainted,  but  she  had  just  sense  enough  left  to 
back  me  up.  So  I  think  it  went  all  right.  ...  Of 
course,  Carrie  grieved  over  my  first  whopper,  but 
she  forgave  me — because  I  was  'loyally,  but  oh!  so 
mistakenly!  trying  to  protect  my  friend.'  All  the 
same,  you're  in  for  it  good  and  plenty,  I'm  afraid. 
I'll  bet  Carrie's  been  watching  for  you — and  timing 
you — ever  since.  That's  just  the  way  she'd  go  about 
it.  You're  bound  to  hear  from  her  after  breakfast. 
Better  be  ready!" 

"Oh — I'm  ready  enough.  The  whole  thing's  of 
no  consequence — unless  it  makes  difficulties  for  you. 
But  it  mustn't.  I'll  see  to  that." 

"H'm.  ...  I  wouldn't  count  too  much  on  my 
drag  with  Prexy  if  I  were  you !  It  might  wear  out 
some  day  when  you  least  expected  it." 

"Idabelle."  Lilia's  tone  was  unmistakable;  the 
hurt  was  deep.  "How  could  you  think  that!  Think 
I'd  deliberately  use  Dr.  Harrod's  friendship  for  me, 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  91 

just  to  get  out  of  a  scrape.  ...  Oh !  I  hate  people 
who  use  other  people.  Idabelle,  promise  me — no 
matter  what  I  do — promise  me  never  to  think  such 
things  of  me  again  I" 

Idabelle's  "All  right,  old  lady!"  was  dry  and  off 
hand;  but  that  was  just  Idabelle's  way  of  register 
ing  emotion.  However,  she  was  quite  as  much  puz 
zled  as  moved;  and  frankly  said  so.  "See  here — 
why  the  devil  do  you  risk  this  sort  of  thing?  Serial- 
stuff,  I  call  it.  Jumping  from  aeroplanes,  and  all 
that  1  You  were  asking  for  a  big  bump,  you  know." 

"I  know." 

"Myrt's  said  right  along  she  doesn't  believe  you 
just  go  for  a  walk.  She  thinks  there's  a  man  in  the 
case ;  but  then — she  would.  When  Myrt  isn't  think 
ing  of  a  man  she  isn't  thinking  at  all.  But  you've 
been  so  close  about  it — no  wonder.  Why  do  you 
go,  anyway?" 

"I  began  it — just  to  do  as  I  please.  .  .  .  But 
now,  all  that  doesn't  matter.  I'm  going  to  leave 
Alden." 

"Nonsense!" 

"It's  true,  Idabelle.  I  must. — But  I  can't  tell  you 
why." 

"Oh.  .  .  .  Then  there  is  a  man — ?" 

"No.  There  isn't.  —  There's  a  woman.  .  .  . 
Please,  Idabelle — I  can't  explain.  It's  all  so  messy 
and — dreadful.  Things  would  have  blown  up  with 
a  bang  soon,  anyway.  I'll  just  have  to  clear  out." 

"You  poor  kid " 

"No;  I'm  all  right — really.  And  you've  been  so 
perfect  to-night,  Idabelle!  I'd  like  you  to  under 
stand,  later  on;  lots  of  things.  But  don't  worry 


92  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

about  me.  It's  simply — well,  I  don't  belong  here  in 
Alden — never  have.  I  must  find  my  own  world." 

"You're  honestly  going  to  skip — ?" 

"Yes.  But  not  on  the  sly.  I'll  leave  openly  some 
how — to-morrow.  Or  the  day  after.  ...  I  can't 
be  sure  to-night." 

"Oh,  see  here,  Lilia — if  it's  as  bad  as  that.  .  .  . 
I'd  do  most  anything  to  keep  you — lie  my  head  off !" 

Lilia  gave  a  nervous  little  laugh,  with  an  odd  be 
traying  catch  in  it.  She  squeezed  Idabelle's  hand. 
"Thanks.  .  .  .  But  there  isn't  any  lie  big  enough  to 
help  me.  I  hope  there's  a  Truth  big  enough — some 
where.  .  .  .  You've  been  good  to  me,  Idabelle.  So 
has  Myrtle — her  way. — Oh,  I  know  I'm  queer!" 

Then  Idabelle,  the  repressed,  did  something  she 
could  not  have  believed  herself  capable  of  doing;  she 
threw  her  arms  about  Lilia  and  held  her  close.  But 
"You  poor  kid — you  poor  old  kid !"  was  all  she 
could  find  for  baffled  sympathy  and  blind  encour 
agement. 

Nevertheless,  Lilia  was  crying  quietly  when  Ida- 
belle  gave  her  a  final  dumb,  mothering  hug,  and 
slipped  from  beneath  the  comforter.  .  .  . 


XVIII 

'T^HE  following  morning,  precisely  at  nine-thirty, 
•*•  Miss  Goldsborough,  titular  head  of  the  Eng 
lish  Department,  Mr.  Gurney,  junior  instructor  in 
Economics,  and  Miss  Carrington,  matron  of  Apsley 
Hall,  were  admitted  to  Dr.  Harrod's  office  by  Miss 
Dart,  his  super-efficient  secretary,  who — with  a  nice 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  93 

gradation  of  emphasis — pronounced  their  names  in 
the  order  given ;  though  Mr.  Gurney  was,  of  course, 
far  too  polite  not  to  stand  aside  and  permit  Miss  Car- 
rington  to  enter  before  him.  It  was  at  once  evident 
to  all  these  intruders  that  Dr.  Harrod  was  unusually 
disturbed  by  their  presence.  He  was  actually  pacing 
towards  them  along  the  famous  strip  of  magenta-red 
carpet;  he  met  and  greeted  them,  indeed,  half-way 
along  the  Road  to  Hell.  He  did  not  invite  them  to 
sit  down. 

"Ladies — Mr.  Gurney,"  he  said,  "permit  me  to 
explain  this  matter,  briefly.  I  have  been  talking  to 
Miss  Chenoworth  for  the  past  half-hour.  ...  I 
am  in  full  possession  of  the  facts."  He  drew  him 
self  up  to  his  full  height,  his  hands  clasped  behind 
him,  and  spoke  slowly,  with  weight,  exercising  the 
accumulated  awe  of  his  personal  dignity,  his  position, 
his  years.  * 

"As  you  know,  the  child  is  here  through  my  per 
suasion.  I  own  to  a  great  affection  for  her.  But 
we  are  all  aware  that  she  has  defied  the  college  rules, 
more  than  once ;  and  I  suspect  I  have  been  accused  of 
favoritism  because  I  have  shielded  her  from  the 
usual  consequences.  Very  well.  I  confess  my  crime. 
I  have  been  influenced  by  my  interest  in  her.  I  am 
so  influenced  to-day."  He  paused  a  moment,  bending 
an  almost  baleful  glance  upon  the  insignificant  Gur 
ney,  whose  thin  marrow  melted  before  him.  "It  is 
still  my  impression,  Mr.  Gurney,  that  Lilia  Cheno 
worth  is  a  girl  in  a  thousand;  sucH  as  I  should  be  very 
sorry  to  feel  that  Alden  has  no  means  of  reaching 
and  winning  to  a  full  loyalty." 

"Oh,    by    all    means  —  that  ...  yes  ...  oh, 


94  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

quite — !"  emitted  Mr.  Gurney  in  fluttering  monosyl 
lables. 

"Quite,"  echoed  Miss  Carrington. 

"Quite,"  firmly  pronounced  Miss  Goldsborough. 

"I  rejoice,"  said  Dr.  Harrod,  "that  we  are  all  of 
one  mind.  But  I  have  often  felt  it  to  be  the  note 
of  Alden,"  he  added — who  knows  how  malignly? — 
"that  we  are  all  of  one  mind.  Our  solidarity  is  our 
strength.  .  .  .  However,  to  return  to  Miss  Cheno- 
worth.  I  am  not  for  the  moment  at  liberty  to  give 
you  details;  but  this  I  will  say.  Beneath  the  some 
what  gay — even  frivolous — surface  she  presents  to 
the  world,  this  poor  child  is  masking  a  spirit  dark 
ened  by  sorrow  and — yes,  I  think  I  may  admit — by 
anxiety.  She  has  been  unhappy  in  her  family  life, 
and  she  fears  that  further  trouble  is  in  store  for  her 
father  and  herself.  At  night  she  broods  over  these 
things;  she  is  often  unable  to  sleep;  and  on  several 
occasions  she  has  been  driven  to  slip  out  and  walk 
about  the  streets.  ...  In  short,  her  disordered 
nerves  have  betrayed  her.  But  she  does  not  seek  to 
excuse  herself,  and  this  morning  she  has  offered  to 
leave  Alden  quietly  and  return  to  her  father.  It  may 
well  be  the  best — the  only  solution." 

From  Mr.  Gurney  and  Miss  Carrington  a  faint 
murmur  of  dissent;  from  Miss  Goldsborough  a  ring 
ing  "By  no  means,  Dr.  Harrod!  It  isn't  to  be 
thought  of!" 

"Ah,  pardon  me,  Miss  Goldsborough,  it  must  be 
thought  of — for  Lilians  sake,  if  not  for  our  own. 
Under  the  circumstances,  it  may  be  unwise  to  sub 
ject  her  to  any  further  strain.  I  shall  have  to  con 
sider  the  matter  very  carefully.  ...  In  the  mean- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  95 

time,  may  I  ask  you  to  regard  all  this  as  confiden 
tial?  And  may  I  ask  for  your  patience  and  sup 
port?" 

He  accompanied  them  to  the  door;  he  even 
opened  it. 

From  the  outer  office  came  a  coarse,  high-pitched 
feminine  voice,  rapidly  threaded  through  with  Miss 
Dart's  voice  in  sharp  remonstrance. 

"Impossible — at  this  time.  .  .  .  I'm  not  deaf.  .  . 
it's  disgraceful  of  you  to  shriek  so — make  a  scene 
of  this  kind.  .  .  .  I  insist  that  you  calm  yourself!" 

But  the  coarse,  high-pitched  voice  carried  above 
her :  "Say,  I  gotta  see  the  President,  I  tell  yer !  Right 
now!  She  was  in  his  rooms — one  o'  the  college 
gurls — I  seen  her  there !  An'  late  at  night,  at  that ! 
What  kind  of  a  Perfesser  d'yj  call  that  to  be  havin' ! 
He  orter  be  run  outta  town  on  a  rail !  Lurin'  gurls 
to  his  rooms — that  ain't  right,  is  it !  I  gotta  see  the 
Pres'dent  right  off  now!" 

Dr.  Harrod  stepped  quickly  forward  and  bent  his 
most  impressive  frown  upon  poor  Mysie,  who  was 
not  wholly  prepared  for  so  awful  an  apparition. 
"Well,  madam — ?  I  am  the  President.  What  have 
you  to  say  to  me  ?" 

Poor  Mysie' s  prominent  oyster-gray  eyes  goggled 
piteously;  her  tongue  thickened  and  stiffened,  and  she 
could  barely  stammer  out,  "Perfesser  Thorpe  .  .  . 
it  ain't  right,  sir.  ...  I  seen  a  college  gurl  in  his 
room  las'  night  .  .  ." 

"One  moment!"  commanded  Dr.  Harrod.  "Miss 
Goldsborough — Miss  Carrington — Mr.  Gurney — 
be  good  enough  to  return  to  my  office.  Since  you 
happen  to  be  present  at  this  astounding  accusation, 


96  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

we  may  as  well  sift  the  matter  thoroughly — at  once." 
And  again  he  bent  his  stern  brows  at  tremulous 
Mysie,  and  pointed  her  down  the  Road  to  Hell. 
"Step  inside,  madam.  And  pray  begin  more  sen 
sibly  by  giving  us  your  name  and  credentials — 1" 

But  poor  Mysie  did  not  step  inside.  The  emo 
tional  stress  of  her  supreme  effort  to  live  up  to  the 
heroic  standards  of  the  screen  now  proved  too  much 
for  her.  Far  from  obeying  Dr.  Harrod's  command, 
she  gave  a  loud,  involuntary  yell  and  dropped  heavily 
to  the  floor — wracked  and  writhen  there  by  the  ter 
rible  clonic  spasm  of  epilepsy;  perhaps  the  most 
shocking  sight  for  unprepared  bystanders  which 
morbid  nature  affords.  .  .  .  Mr.  Gurney,  with  a  cry 
of  horror,  fled  precipitately  from  the  room.  Not 
until  he  had  reached  the  stairs  was  he  able  to  control 
himself  and  decide  that  he  was  running  to  summon 
medical  aid. 


XIX 

WHEN,  fussily  heralded  by  Mr.  Gurney,  Dr. 
Dahlgren  (Carrie  Dahlgren,  M.D.)  arrived 
— which  she  did  with  her  usual  promptness  and 
quiet  authority — the  worst  of  Mysie's  inopportune 
fit  was  over.  Dr.  Dahlgren  at  once  recognized  her 
patient,  for  she  had  on  more  than  one  occasion  been 
sumnloned  by  Mrs.  Sterrett  to  attend  Mysie.  "But 
whatever  brought  her  here!"  exclaimed  Dr.  Dahl 
gren.  "Well,  no  matter — that's  not  my  business. 
I'll  just  get  her  home  to  Beth  Sterrett  as  quick  as  I 
can."  Dr. '  Dahlgren  then  telephoned  for  the  in- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  97 

firmary  ambulance  (a  clear  infraction  of  rules;  it 
was  to  be  used  only  for  college  cases)  and,  when  it 
had  slipped  round  with  a  vain  attempt  at  stealth  to 
the  rear  door  of  the  Administration  Building,  she 
insisted  upon  accompanying  the  patient.  "Beth  Ster- 
rett  will  like  it  better  if  I'm  right  there,  and  I'd  go 
a  long  way  to  do  something  for  Beth.  She's  the  salt 
of  this  earth,  and  I've  always  said  so." 

Dr.  Dahlgren  was  addressing  Dr.  Harrod,  who 
now  drew  her  aside.  "Please  ask  Mrs.  Sterrett  to 
come  over  and  see  me  this  morning — as  soon  as  pos 
sible.  I've  an  appointment  at  twelve.  Ask  it  for 
me  as  a  special  favor." 

Dr.  Dahlgren  nodded.  It  was  not  her  custom  to 
waste  many  words. 

The  immediate  flurry  being  over,  Dr.  Harrod  felt 
a  need  for  solitude  and  reflection.  He  tactfully  dis 
missed  his  three  earlier  visitors,  but  with  a  parting 
word  of  caution.  "You  will  understand,  of  course," 
he  said,  "that  no  reliance  is  to  be  placed  upon  that 
poor  creature's  statement.  I  am  bound  to  make  cer 
tain  inquiries — for  Dr.  Thorpe's  sake.  In  the  mean 
time  I  rely  on  your  discretion." 

Miss  Goldsborough,  Miss  Carrington,  and  Mr. 
Gurney  departed — each  with  fluttering  nerves,  yet 
with  an  oddly  increased  sense  of  self-importance. 
They  were  like  the  American  tourists  caught  in  Ger 
many  by  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War — shaken 
and  apprehensive  but  thrilled,  and  bursting  with 
perilous  matter  which  they  knew  that  some  day  they 
would  revel  in  communicating.  .  .  . 

Dr.  Harrod  shut  himself  into  his  private  office. 


98  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

For  perhaps  ten  minutes  he  sat  motionless  before 
his  desk,  a  rather  grim  smile  on  his  weary,  raven- 
wise  old  face.  Ruth  would  have  understood  that 
smile;  she  would  have  known  that  whenever  her 
father  smiled  thus  he  was  defying  Fate. 

Not  one  of  the  events  of  the  morning  had  been  to 
his  liking;  no,  not  one.  And  the  morning  was  not 
half  over.  Worse — far  worse,  he  suspected — was 
still  before  him.  Indeed,  as  he  sat  there,  he  was  by 
no  means  certain  he  would  be  able  to  emerge  from 
the  turmoil  of  this  day  with  the  customary  credit  to 
Alden  and  to  himself.  Mysie's  outbreak  had  struck 
him  as  strangely  ominous.  He  felt  in  his  bones  there 
must  be  some  connection  between  that  and  Lilia's 
midnight  escapade.  Lilia's  account  to  him  of  that 
escapade,  he  was  convinced,  had  been  truthful;  but 
it  had  not  been  frank.  He  well  knew  she  had  held 
back  from  him  the  heart  of  her  confession;  he  had 
been  aware  as  she  talked  of  something  deliberately 
passed  by.  Was  it  possible  that  she  had  gone  to 
young  Thorpe  on  some  crazy  impulse — but  on  what 
impulse?  .  .  .  Well;  it  would  be  unfortunate — 
very! — if  the  closing  year  of  his  long  service  should 
be  marred  by  a  public  scandal.  It  would,  above  all, 
be  unfortunate  for  Alden.  And  Dr.  Harrod  loved 
Alden.  In  the  fullest  sense,  Alden  was  his  creation; 
he  had  made  it  what  it  was.  He  was  proud  of  what 
it  was.  A  liberal  college.  A  college  where  young 
women  could  come  for  the  things  of  the  mind  and — 
on  the  whole — find  what  they  sought.  Yes,  the  spirit 
of  Alden  was  humane — he  had  seen  to  that.  The 
spirit  of  the  place  was  not  petty;  it  was  broad — in 
vigorating.  And — so  far  as  practicable,  granted  the 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  99 

limitations  and  prejudices  of  a  given  society — it  was 
free !  Ah !  just  for  that  reason  he  had  had  to  keep 
a  sharp  eye  out  for  noxious  weeds !  He  had  had  to 
pluck  them  forth,  instantly!  He  had  had  through 
out  to  convince  his  trustees  and  the  parents  of  his 
girls  that  freedom  is  not  inconsistent  with  safety. 
.  .  .  Well,  yes;  he  had  been  a  benevolent  autocrat, 
it  was  true ;  but  granted  the  social  conditions  of  the 
time  what  other  course  could  he  possibly  have 
steered — ?  .  .  .  H'm.  .  .  .  Lilia  .  .  .  yes;  he  had 
wavered — for  once  he  had  wavered.  Still — it  was 
impossible  for  him  even  now,  as  he  sat  there,  to  think 
of  Lilia  as  a  noxious  weed.  From  the  very  first  (as 
— a  casual,  light-winged  moth — she  flitted  through, 
or  paused  hovering  within  those  vast,  cool  rooms  of 
her  father's  villa)  she  had  magically  moved  him; 
had,  in  a  sense,  obsessed  him.  From  that  time  she 
was  never  long  out  of  his  thoughts.  .  .  .  And  the 
grim  smile  tightened  a  little.  If  he  were  a  younger 
man — well,  if  he  were  a  younger,  a  much  younger 
man  it  would  not  have  been  difficult  for  him,  he  felt, 
to  fancy  himself  in  love  with  the  child.  But  that,  of 
course — at  his  age — was  absurd!  It  was  merely 
that  she  appealed  not  only  to  his  sympathies,  but  to 
his  imagination.  She  was  like  something — h'm — like 
something  life  had  never  brought  him,  and  now  could 
never  bring  him.  She  was  all  that  he  had  missed. 
.  .  .  His  long,  stiff  fingers  began  to  drum  monot 
onously  on  the  blotter-pad. 

Young  Thorpe,  now — what  of  him?  Why  was  it 
he  could  never  quite  bring  himself  to  like  young 
Thorpe?  Or  was  it  only  of  late  he  had  felt  this 
slight,  but  growing  antagonism  ? — Bah ! 


100  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"An  excellent  teacher,"  said  Dr.  Harrod,  speak 
ing  out  the  words  to  the  empty  room  with  self-defiant 
decision. 

Then  his  desk-telephone  rang. 

Miss  Dart  was  announcing  a  visitor;  Mrs.  Ster- 
rett. — Yes,  yes:  he  had  asked  Mrs.  Sterrett  to  call. 
"And  Dr.  Thorpe  is  with  her,"  added  Miss  Dart. 
"They  would  like  to  see  you  together."  Unfortu 
nate — unfortunate !  However,  it  could  not  easily 
be  helped.  .  .  .  Dr.  Harrod  pushed  back  his  chair. 


XX 

AND  Lilia,  while  beyond  her  immediate  con- 
-***  sciousness  these  slight  things  were  happening 
and  interweaving  themselves  with  her  destiny,  was 
at  war  with  demons  in  the  small  bedroom  of  her 
mother's  suite  at  the  Alden  Inn.  Straight  from  the 
early  interview  with  Dr.  Harrod  she  had  gone 
thither  and  had  asked  the  day-clerk  for  the  num 
ber  of  Mrs.  Chenoworth's  room.  For  an  instant 
the  day-clerk  had  hesitated.  "But  it's  all  right, 
really!"  Lilia  sparkled  and  reassured  \\irn.  "She's 
my  mother,  you  know;  she's  expecting  me." 

"Oh !"  exclaimed  the  day-clerk,  with  instantly 
stirred  gallantry.  "That's  different.  Number  38." 

Lilia  was  glad  to  find  the  dark  third-floor  hall 
way  vacant;  it  enabled  her  to  stand  unobserved  be 
fore  "Number  38" — to  stand  there  and  fight  down 
her  longing  to  turn  and  creep  down  the  stairs  to 
the  public  office  and  so  escape.  For  many  moments 
her  natural  decision  and  intrepidity  failed  before 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  101 

what  seemed  to  her  an  impossible  test.  She  was 
afraid  of  her  mother,  whom  she  had  not  seen  for  six 
or  seven  years ;  but  it  was  not  for  herself,  it  was  for 
Anson  Chenoworth,  her  father,  that  she  was  now 
abjectly,  miserably  afraid.  And  a  single  thought 
pounded  through  her  as  she  stood  there  in  the  dark 
hallway  before  the  ugly,  yellow-varnished  door: 
"She  shan't  hurt  him — she  shan't — she  shan't!" 

When  at  last  she  had  forced  herself  to  knock,  she 
received  no  answer. 

A  second,  a  third  time  she  knocked,  each  time  more 
loudly;  but  it  seemed  to  her  that  all  this  rapping  of 
knuckles  must  be  superfluous.  Surely,  the  persistent 
thudding  of  her  heart  must  be  audible  throughout 
the  hotel!  Even  the  clerk  in  the  office,  she  felt, 
would  hear  it  and  would  send  up  to  inquire.  ...  In 
a  spasm  of  panic  she  seized  and  rattled  the  door 
knob  of  "Number  38,"  and  it  turned  in  her  hand,  the 
door  swinging  open  toward  her.  Evidently  her 
mother  had  gone  out;  but  why,  then,  had  the  clerk 
not  mentioned  it — and  why  was  the  door  unlocked? 
Lilia  was  aware,  however,  of  an  instant  relief  from 
tension;  she  drew  a  long,  free  breath.  Since  she  had 
not  immediately  to  face  her  mother,  all  would  be 
well.  She  needed  just  this — an  interval — a  chance 
to  collect  herself  and  be  at  her  best  for  what  might 
follow.  She  would  wait,  of  course.  Her  mother 
was  almost  certain  to  return  to  her  room  before  go 
ing  on  to  Dr.  Harrod's  office  at  twelve. 

Tranquillized,  Lilia  stepped  aside  and  let  the  ill- 
balanced  door  swing  past  her.  She  was  looking  now 
into  a  small,  sun-flooded  room — just  the  usual  bare, 
characterless  private  sitting-room  of  the  modest  Al- 


102  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

den  Inn.  That  at  least,  with  the  strong  light  full 
in  her  eyes,  was  her  first  impression;  but  as  the  daz 
zle  cleared  she  saw  that  this  particular  room  was 
everywhere  overlaid  by  a  multiplicity  of  objects 
heaped  or  scattered  about  in  the  most  slovenly  dis 
order.  The  contents  of  a  woman's  large,  unsyste 
matic  trunk  must  have  been  removed  by  impatient 
armfuls  and  dumped  at  random  to  achieve  this  ex 
traordinary  effect.  Corsets,  foot-gear,  lingerie,  furs, 
novels,  toilet  articles,  gloves,  photographs,  cigarette 
boxes,  letters — the  devil  knows  what ! — flowed  indis 
criminately  over  the  room's  three  chairs,  its  desk,  its 
flimsy  cherry-red  center-table,  and  the  November- 
leaf-mottled  carpet-rug  of  its  rust-colored  floor. 
....  Lilia  stared,  aghast.  She  remembered  her 
mother  perfectly  well  as  a  sulkily  beautiful  woman 
with  an  uncertain  temper,  whose  time  was  given  prin 
cipally  to  supervising  with  a  peevish  fastidiousness 
all  that  a  superlative  maid  and  four  or  five  house- 
servants  could  do  to  promote  her  personal  loveliness 
and  the  luxurious  comfort  of  whatever  rooms  the 
wandering  Chenoworths  happened  to  be  occupying. 
Why  even  the  last  time  she  had  seen  her  mother,  in 
that  coquettish  toy-villa  near  Monte  Carlo — bright 
pink  with  the  apple-green  blinds,  even  then — with 
the  family  volcano  in  active  eruption,  blowing  itself 
to  pieces — her  mother  had  presented  to  a  tearful, 
rather  dazed  little  girl  who  had  slipped  somehow 
into  her  presence  the  surface-picture  of  an  ordered 
and  faultless  prostration.  Between  Lilia  and  the 
chaos  of  the  hotel  room  that  picture  drifted  back  for 
a  moment :  a  dusky,  muted  chamber  with  walls  of  pale 
turquoise-blue  and  a  floor  of  dull-amber  tiles;  an  Em- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  103 

pire  couch  with  a  flow  of  peacock-hued  silks  across  it; 
on  the  couch,  reclining  in  soft  folds  of  white,  a  volup 
tuous  woman  with  shut  eyes,  serenely  suffering,  while 
an  Italian  maid  hovered  over  her,  bathing  her  marble 
temples  with  eau  de  Cologne.  .  .  . 

Oh !  it  was  incredible  —  impossible  —  that  her 
mother  should  have  fallen  to  this — this  squalid  in 
decency!  Lilia  shivered;  her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 
She  stepped  quickly  through  the  doorway  and,  in 
stinctively,  lest  a  stranger  eye  should  peer  in  on 
what  seemed  to  her  at  once  shameful  and  piteous, 
she  drew  shut  the  door. 

And  she  was  aware  then  of  another  shut  door  in 
the  wall  to  her  left — the  bedroom,  of  course !  How 
stupid  of  her  not  to  have  remembered  that  her 
mother  was  accustomed  to  sleep  until  noon,  or  later. 
Or  if  she  were  taking  her  bath,  she  might  easily  not 
have  heard  anything.  .  .  .  Lilians  heart  began  thud 
ding  again ;  she  would  never,  she  thought,  be  able  to 
force  herself  to  knock  at  that  second  door.  .  .  .  She 
managed  it,  however,  at  last — and  received  no  an 
swer.  She  was  thoroughly  frightened  now.  It  came 
suddenly  into  her  mind  that  her  mother  was  lying 
dead  on  the  other  side  of  that  door;  it  came  to  her 
with  the  force  of  a  conviction.  And  with  that  con 
viction,  oddly,  her  merely  physical  terror  vanished, 
to  be  replaced  by  a  curious  rapt  elation  of  soul.  She 
was  standing,  as  it  were,  outside  of  herself,  contem 
plating  with  a  sort  of  ecstasy  the  dramatic  quality 
of  the  immediate  situation: — daughter — mother — 
the  shut  door  between  them — all  the  imaginative  pos 
sibilities  of  the  shut  door  between  them.  .  .  . 
What  a  moment !  What  a  moment — to  play! 


104  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

As  she  tried  the  door,  found  it  unlocked,  and 
slowly — slowly — opened  it,  it  seemed  to  her  that  the 
eyes  of  the  Universe  were  fastened  upon  her. 

*          *          *          * 

The  bedroom  was  not  large,  and  from  the  door 
way  Lilia  could  almost  have  leaned  forward  and 
touched  her  mother.  She  was  lying  on  the  bed,  a 
long,  lean  figure,  only  partly  dressed,  and  only  half 
covered  by  a  huddle  of  mussed  bedclothes  which  she 
had  ineffectively  drawn  across  her  legs.  Her  abun 
dant  blonde  reddish  hair  had  been  rolled  up  loosely 
and  lay  in  a  snarled  mass  on  the  pillow;  the  face, 
buried  in  that  tangle,  was  clay-colored — it  looked 
pinched  and  dry.  The  eyes  were  closed. 

For  a  second,  but  for  the  merest  second,  Lilia  ac 
cepted  what  she  saw  as  the  full  confirmation  of  her 
sudden  fear.  Then,  quite  as  suddenly,  she  was 
aware  that  she  was  not  in  the  presence  of  death. 
Her  mother  moaned,  slightly  .  .  .  and  Lilia  sprang 
forward.  "Mother ! — what  is  it  ?  I'm  Lilia,  mother 
— Lilia!  I  want  to  help  you !" 

Mrs.  Chenoworth  half-opened  expressionless  eyes 
and  seemed  to  be  staring  blankly  at  the  girl's  face 
bending  close  to  her  own;  but  the  eyes  closed  again 
— she  relapsed  at  once  into  her  lethargy.  Lilia 
seized  her  mother's  bare  shoulders,  shook  her,  called 
to  her;  it  was  useless.  She  could  not  again  rouse  her. 

A  frightened  chambermaid  now  rushed  in  from 
the  hall  as  far  as  the  bedroom  door  and  cried  out 
for  an  explanation.  "My  mother's  dying!"  Lilia 
cried  back  at  her.  The  chambermaid  clattered  away 
with  pious  ejaculations  of  horror.  Lilia  threw  her 
self  on  the  bed  beside  her  mother  and  began  chafing 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  105 

her  cheeks,  pushing  back  the  weight  of  hair  from  her 
forehead,  pleading  with  her  for  a  sign  of  life,  of 
recognition.  .  .  . 

Presently  there  was  a  man  standing  beside  Lilia, 
who  took  her  firmly  by  the  arm  and  half-lifted  her 
from  the  bed  to  her  feet.  Lilia  was  faintly  con 
scious  of  a  confusion  of  excited  voices  near  at  hand. 
The  man  had  turned  on  an  electric  reading-lamp 
standing  on  the  night-table  by  the  bed.  "Shut  the 
door,  my  dear  girl,"  he  commanded — "tell  them 
your  mother's  all  right.  We'll  soon  bring  her 
round." 

Dazed,  Lilia  went  to  the  bedroom  door  and  called 
out  on  an  odd,  strained  note:  "M'sieu  le  medecin 
dit  que  c'est  rien — rien  du  tout.  .  .  .  Pas  de  dan 
ger  .  .  ."  Then  she  shut  the  door;  and  as  she  did 
so  the  man's  hand  fell  with  a  reassuring  pressure  on 
her  shoulder. 

"How  often  does  your  mother  use  this  thing?"  he 
asked.  Lilia  turned  to  the  man  and  saw  that  he  was 
holding  a  small  object  in  his  hand — a  little  cylinder 
of  glass  and  metal,  tipped  with  a  hair-like  needle. 

"What  is  it?" 

"Oh,  come  now — you  must  be  frank  with  me !  It's 
a  hypodermic  syringe,  and  your  mother's  arm  is  cov 
ered  with  scars.  How  long  has  she  been  taking 
morphine  ?" 

"Morphine—?" 

"Certainly,  my  dear  child.  It's  evidently  a  long 
standing  habit.  But  this  time  she's  had  an  overdose. 
.  .  .  However,  don't  worry;  we'll  pull  her  through." 

"Morphine  .  .  ."  repeated  Lilia.  Her  knees  felt 
weak  and  she  flopped  down  on  a  chair,  still  keeping 


106  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

her  eyes  on  the  man's  face.  "Don't  bother  about 
me;  I'm  all  right,"  she  said  faintly.  "I  haven't  seen 
my  mother  before — oh,  not  for  years!" 

"You're  a  college  girl?" 

"Yes." 

"French—?" 

"No." 

"You  spoke  French  to  them — out  there.   Why?" 

"I  don't  know  .  .  ." 

"H'm — "  said  the  doctor — "you  poor  kid." 

He  was  a  tall,  sandy  young  man  with  a  pleasant, 
homely,  irregular  face.  Lilia  was  certain  she  had 
never  seen  him  before. 


XXI 

TAUNSTER  THORPE  was  in  difficulties. 
**^  Coming  out  from  his  lecture-room  in  Grims- 
by  Hall  he  had  crossed  the  campus  to  the  Admin 
istration  Building,  intending  there  to  look  up  the 
general  "stand"  of  one  or  two  girls  who  were  not 
doing  as  well  as  they  should  in  his  pet  "honors 
course" :  English  Romanticism  in  the  Late  Eight 
eenth  Century.  But  just  as  he  reached  the  great 
pseudo-Gothic  front  door  of  the  Administration 
Building  he  encountered  —  of  all  people  —  Mrs. 
Sterrett,  who  seemed  to  be  mentally  flustered  and 
physically  not  a  little  out  of  breath.  She  at  once 
drew  him  aside  to  inform  him,  rather  tremulously, 
of  Mysie's  unfortunate  escapade  and  her  own  pres 
ent  mission — and  Dunster  was  aware  as  she  spoke 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  107 

of  a  procession  of  ice-cold  ants  up  the  backs  of  his 
legs  and  of  a  far,  faint  tremor  of  nausea.  For  now 
he  was  trapped.  Mysie's  extraordinary  errand 
(damn  the  crazy  epileptic!)  now  made  it  imperative 
for  him  to  give  Dr.  Harrod  much  the  same  explana 
tion  he  had  given  to  Mrs.  Sterrett — perhaps  the  last 
explanation  he  would  have  wished  to  offer  that  acute 
and  often  terrifying  man.  Dr.  Harrod,  moreover, 
would  of  course  demand  the  name  of  the  girl;  but 
right  there  Dunster  made  up  his  mind  to  draw  the 
line.  He  would  make  that  a  matter  of  private  privi 
lege  and  insist  upon  his  conscientious  right  to  with 
hold  the  name.  Yes.  .  .  .  With  that  one  trump  card 
to  play,  he  might  even  contrive  to  emerge  from  this 
ordeal  with  an  added  lustre;  might  even  succeed  in 
stamping  himself  as  a  man  possessing  a  delicate 
sense  of  honor  enforced  by  unusual  firmness,  courage 
and  worth. 

He  suggested  to  Mrs.  Sterrett  that  he  could  per 
fectly  well  give  Dr.  Harrod  all  the  facts  essential, 
and  so  save  her  the  necessity  of  climbing  the  long 
flight  of  stairs  to  Dr.  Harrod's  office.  He  could 
see,  he  said,  that  she  was  already  overtired  and  that 
she  was  rather  dreading  the  coming  interview.  But 
Mrs.  Sterrett  insisted  upon  going  up.  She  wasn't  a 
bit  afraid  of  "the  President";  on  the  contrary,  he'd 
always  been  kindness  itself  to  her — and  she  wouldn't 
for  anything  have  him  think  she  hadn't  wanted  to 
come !  So  Dunster  yielded,  perforce.  He  was  de 
termined,  though,  that  Mrs.  Sterrett  should  not  meet 
Dr.  Harrod  alone.  Having,  with  genuine  kindness, 
assisted  his  landlady  to  the  presence  of  Miss  Dart 
(whose  controlled  eye  gave  forth  nothing  but  a  prim 


108  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

official  acknowledgment  of  his  greeting),  he  simply 
— without  a  preliminary  request  of  Mrs.  Sterrett — 
instructed  Miss  Dart  to  announce  a  joint  call  upon 
the  Oracle  within. 

And  now,  faced  by  Mrs.  Sterrett  and  Dr.  Har- 
rod,  Dunster  was  engaged  in  explaining  away  Mysie's 
perilous  accusation;  and  he  was  finding  it  far  more 
difficult  than  he  had  hoped  to  lay  the  matter  before 
the  President  of  Alden  in  any  light  entirely  satisfac 
tory  to  himself. 

"So  much  for  what  Mysie  saw  and  reported,"  he 
said.  "I  can't  thank  Mrs.  Sterrett  enough  for  giv 
ing  you  the  facts  so  clearly.  But  now  that  I  must — 
well,  interpret  them,  if  you  like  .  .  .  frankly,  I'd 
rather  cut  my  hand  off!  I  could  talk  it  over  with 
Mrs.  Sterrett  last  night,  because — well,  because  I 
needed  advice,  and  there's  no  one  I'm  fonder  of 
anywhere.  You  see,  sir,  Mrs.  Sterrett's  more  like 
my  mother  than  my  landlady."  (Her  cheeks  pink, 
her  eyes  shining,  Mrs.  Sterrett  gave  forth  an  in 
definable  little  noise — a  wordless  amalgam  of  joy, 
pride,  and  humble  protest.)  "But  discussing  a  thing 
like  this  with  you,  sir  .  .  ." 

"He  means,"  Mrs.  Sterrett  struck  boldly  in,  "that 
no  young  man  with  right  feelings  'd  ever  like  to  say 
out  some  foolish  girl  was  off  her  head  about  him! 
But  that's  the  whole  story,  Dr.  Harrod — and  thanks 
to  Mysie  and  my  carelessness  it's  got  to  be  said." 

"Yes,"  Dunster  echoed,  "it's  got  to  be,  I  suppose. 
So  I'll — excuse  me,  sir — get  it  off  my  chest.  .  .  . 
One  of  the  students — an  overstrung  girl,  of  course 
— seems  to  imagine  she's  head-over-heels  in  love  with 
me."  He  had  tried  to  carry  off  the  bald  statement 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  109 

with  a  colloquial  turn  and  a  deprecating  smile;  but 
he  hated  and  despised  himself,  sincerely,  as  he 
uttered  the  words. 

'  'Seems  to  imagine,'  "  commented  Dr.  Harrod. 
"H'm.  ...  If  she  imagines  she  is,  then  she  is. 
Love's  the  child  of  imagination." 

"Perhaps,"  Dunster  responded.  "I  make  no  pre 
tense  of  understanding  it.  I  only  know  this  girl 
strikes  me  as  more — well,  as  less  balanced  than  most 
of  the  students.  Less  sensible,  certainly." 

"There  are  girls  like  that,  you  know — plenty  of 
Jem,"  prompted  Mrs.  Sterrett  gently.  "Not  bad  or 
anything — it's  just  a  stage  they  go  through.  When 
they  act  on  impulse  and  do  silly  things  almost  before 
they  realize.  .  .  ." 

Dr.  Harrod  nodded  at  Mrs.  Sterrett  with  grave 
kindliness,  as  if  to  acknowledge  valued  assistance. 
Having  ruminated  a  moment,  it  was  to  her  he  at 
length  addressed  himself.  "Let  me  thank  you  for 
coming  over,  Mrs.  Sterrett;  I  won't  detain  you 
longer.  What  you've  told  me  of  Mysie  throws  light 
on  the  whole  situation.  You're  a  good  woman  to 
keep  that  unfortunate  creature  and  care  for  her ;  but 
then" — with  a  smile — "you've  always  been  that, 
haven't  you !"  He  rose  slowly  and  put  out  his  hand, 
thus  bringing  Mrs.  Sterrett  to  her  feet.  "It's  all  a 
little  disturbing,  of  course;  particularly  for  Dr. 
Thorpe.  I  shouldn't  like  it  to  get  talked  about. 
...  So  I  count  on  you,  Mrs.  Sterrett,  to  manage 
poor  Mysie  for  us,  somehow.  Do  you  think  that 
possible?" 

"Now  don't  you  worry  about  it,  Doctor !"  Mrs. 
Sterrett  was  flushed  with  her  responsibility,  but  she 


110  LILIA   CHENO WORTH 

looked  competent  and  firm.  "I'll  keep  Mysie  in  bed 
a  spell;  and  what's  more,  I'll  make  her  listen  to 
sense.  When  she's  not  upset  like  this,  Mysie'll  take 
anything  I  say  for  gospel — quiet  as  a  lamb."  Then, 
for  a  moment,  her  eyes  rested  with  a  mild  glow  on 
Dunster.  uAnd  don't  you  worry,  either!  You're 
not  to  blame,  and  you've  acted  just  splendid  all 
through. — Well,  if  I'm  not  needed,  I'd  better  be  go 
ing  back.  I'm  right  sorry  about  the  fuss  Mysie 
made  here.  I  feel  kind  of  responsible  over  that  my 
self." 

"Nonsense,  nonsense!  My  dear  lady,  don't  give 
it  another  thought!"  Dr.  Harrod  reassured  her,  ac 
companying  her  with  kindliest  deference  to  the  office 
door.  uWe  shall  all  soon  be  able  to  dismiss  it  from 
our  minds,  I  hope." 

Dunster,  who  had  risen  with  them,  knew  of  course 
that  he  was  expected  to  remain.  And,  during  his 
landlady's  rather  ceremonious  departure,  he  was 
wishing  he  could  manage  to  feel  less  like  an  ashamed 
schoolboy  caught  in  suspicious  circumstances,  and 
more  like  a  man  of  the  world.  "Nerves  again !"  he 
lashed  himself.  "It's  ridiculous!  After  all,  what 
am  I  telling  but  the  truth — the  exact  truth !" 

Was  it  an  Arabian  poet  who  said,  "There  are 
many  kinds  of  truth  acceptable  to  Allah,  but  the  Ex 
act  Truth  is  not  one  of  them" — ? 

"Now  Thorpe,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Dr.  Har 
rod,  as  he  paced  back  to  his  desk,  "let's  understand 
each  other.  You  admit  one  of  your  students  was  in 
your  rooms  late  last  night.  Did  you  find  her  there 
when  you  returned  from  dining  with  us?" 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  111 

"No,  sir.  I  stopped  awhile  to  chat  with  Mrs. 
Sterrett.  After  I  did  reach  my  rooms,  through  the 
front  of  the  house,  someone  knocked  at  my  private 
entrance — from  the  garden.  I  went  to  the  door  and 
found " 

"Yes ?" 

"The  girl  in  question,  sir." 

"You  haven't  yet  mentioned  her  name,  my  boy." 

"No.    I  can't  feel  I  have  the  right  to  do  so." 

"Ah — !"  Dr.  Harrod  seated  himself  in  his  desk- 
chair  and  thrust  out  his  long,  lean  legs.  "You  think, 
then,  you  owe  her  a  duty  superior  to  the  duty  you 
owe  to  me?" 

"In  this  instance — yes." 

"Would  you  perhaps  'interpret'  that  a  little?" 

"I'd  like  to.  If  I  give  you  her  name,  you'll  have 
to  take  some  official  action,  and  I  believe  anything  of 
the  kind  would  be  disastrous — for  the  girl.  I  must 
simply  ask  you  to  rely  on  my  personal  discretion." 

"I  see.  But  you  force  me  to  wonder.  .  .  .  Why, 
for  example,  did  you  let  this  girl  enter  your  rooms?" 

"If  I  hadn't,  sir,  she'd  have  made  a  scene  on  the 
doorstep.  As  it  was,  she  was  slightly  hysterical.  It 
was  daring,  of  course;  but  I  felt  I  had  to  risk  it — 
in  order  to  calm  her  and  reason  with  her.  But  I'm 
perfectly  aware,  Dr.  Harrod,  that  your  final  view 
of  all  this  must  depend  on  your  good  or  bad  opinion 
of  me" 

"Exactly  .  .  .  I'll  be  frank,  Thorpe.  You're  an 
excellent  teacher  with  an  excellent  reputation.  But 
have  the  fairness  to  admit  that  our  personal  rela 
tions  have  not  been  such  as  to  give  me  any  knowl 
edge  whatever  of  your  deeper  springs  of  character. 


112  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

In  other  words,  I  haven't — for  the  line  you're  taking 
with  me — the  very  knowledge  I  need." 

Dunster  hesitated;  then  nodded,  grudgingly.  "I 
suppose  that's  true." 

"It  is  true.  But  don't  misunderstand  me.  I'm 
not  suspecting  you  of  anything  base.  Only,  I  am  not 
in  a  position  simply  to  wash  my  hands  of  this  mat 
ter.  I'm  not  a  ruthless  person,  Thorpe.  Possibly 
I  can  do  more  for  the  girl  than  you  can.  So  I  re 
peat  my  demand — for  her  good,  and  yours,  and  the 
good  of  Alden.  I  ask  you  for  the  name  of  the  girl 
who  visited  you  last  night." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Dunster. 

"You  refuse?" 

"In  no  spirit  of  rebellion,  Dr.  Harrod.  I've 
thought  it  all  over  carefully — more  than  once,  and 
I  can't  conscientiously  bring  myself  to  give  you  her 


name." 


Under  provocation,  the  President  of  Alden  was 
not  always  a  patient  man;  but  he  was  sometimes  ca 
pable  of  long  silences — of  merely  waiting  until  he 
felt  he  had  fully  recovered  his  self-control.  So  pro 
longed  now  was  his  silence  that  Dunster,  in  spite  of 
himself,  began  to  fidget  from  one  foot  to  another. 
"Be  seated,  Thorpe,  please,"  said  Dr.  Harrod. 

Dunster  obeyed.  He  was  uncomfortably  aware 
that  things  were  not  developing  quite  as  he  had 
hoped.  The  old  man,  it  was  only  too  evident,  was 
inclined  to  distrust  him: — why?  Moreover,  it  was 
evident  that  he  meant  to  sift  this  affair  to  the  bot 
tom.  The  situation,  then,  was  dangerous.  Sup 
pose.  .  .  .  Good  God!  .  .  .  suppose  Lilia  had  been 
caught  while  getting  back  to  her  room  and  had 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  113 

defiantly  blurted  out — everything !  Or  suppose  she'd 
been  caught  and  had  refused  any  explanation  what 
ever!  That  was  it,  of  course.  The  old  man  was 
trying  to  link  up  ... 

"H'm!"  Dr.  Harrod  drew  in  his  lean,  sharp- 
kneed  legs;  straightened  his  spine.  "In  all  fairness, 
I  think  you  should  know,  my  boy,  that  one  of  our 
students  was  detected  last  night — just  as  she  was 
leaving  the  campus  after  hours.  But  she  wasn't  per 
sonally  aware  she  had  been — watched;  that  is,  not 
until  this  morning.  I've  talked  to  her,  and  I'm  not 
fully  satisfied  by  her  confession.  ...  I  think  it  may 
have  omitted  just  the  interesting  details  you've  lately 
been  giving  me." 

Dunster  was  at  least  glad  his  intuition  had  dis 
counted  the  shock  of  this  surprise.  It  enabled  him 
promptly  to  smile,  rather  disdainfully,  and  say  with 
a  nicely  restrained  indignation:  "I  resent  your  tell 
ing  me  this  now,  Dr.  Harrod.  It  looks  a  little  as  if 
you  had  been  trying  to  trap  me.  After  all,  I'm  not 
a  schoolboy — I'm  a  member  of  your  faculty!  I 
think  I've  every  reason  to  resent  your  handling  of 
this  case." 

"Possibly,  Dr.  Thorpe.  But  have  the  goodness  to 
admit  it's  just  credible  that  two  of  our  students  were 
abroad  last  night.  I  may  be  mistaken.  Moreover, 
it  never  occurred  to  me  you  would  withhold  the 


name." 


But  Dunster  felt  he  had  scored,  and  he  deter 
mined  on  an  even  bolder  stroke. 

"The  fact  remains,  sir,  you  haven't  treated  me  as 
an  equal.  You've  used  finesse.  Possibly  without 
any  intention  of  doing  so.  ...  I'm  willing  to  take 


114  LILIA   CHENO WORTH 

your  word  for  that.  And  I'm  willing  to  admit  it's 
very  unlikely  there  were  two  students  abroad  last 
night.  We've  the  same  girl  in  mind,  then.  But  I 
stick  to  my  guns.  I  believe  it  will  be  most  unfortu 
nate  for  her  if  this  is  made  a  public  matter — a  ques 
tion  of  college  discipline."  (As  if  the  old  man  ever 
would  let  it  come  to  that  with  Lilia! — he  serenely 
thought.)  "Indeed,  I  think  the  whole  thing  should 
be  handled  more  than  discreetly.  So  I'm  going  to 
ask  you,  as  a  personal  request,  not  to  carry  this  in 
quiry  further.  It  simply  comes  to  this:  I  ask  you 
again — and  for  the  last  time,  sir — to  trust  me." 

"For  the  last  time,  Thorpe — ?" 

"Yes,  sir.    If  you  wish  it,  you  can  have  my  resig 


nation  at  once." 


"Very  well — I  accept  your  resignation.  We're 
evidently  not  temperamentally  fitted  to  cooperate 
pleasantly  together." 

Dr.  Harrod  rose.  Dunster  leaped  angrily  to  face 
him. 

"It's  an  outrage,  all  the  same!  Unbelievable! 
How  can  you  possibly  justify  to — to  anybody — 
such  a  high-handed  act!" 

"Ah — !  If  you'll  kindly  restrain  yourself,  Dr. 
Thorpe— I'll  tell  you.  .  .  ." 

Dunster  felt  the  old  man's  eyes  now — no  longer 
vague  and  unfocussed — searching  his  own.  It  was 
an  inquisition  that  daunted  and  confused  him;  he 
had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  sustaining  that  relent 
less  glance. 

"In  the  first  place,"  continued  Dr.  Harrod,  "I 
haven't  dismissed  you;  I've  accepted  your  freely  of 
fered  resignation.  My  reason  for  doing  so  is, 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  115 

frankly,  this :  I  do  not  think  any  young  man  worthy 
of  teaching  here  would  have  made  the  precise  ex 
planation  you  gave  Mrs.  Sterrett  last  night — and 
so,  as  it  happens,  were  forced  to  repeat  to  me  this 
morning." 

"That's  an  absurd  statement!  Unless  youVe 
simply  jumped  to  the  conclusion  IVe  been  lying  to 
you!" 

"You  miss  my  point,  Thorpe.  I'm  not,  for  the 
moment,  questioning  the  truth  of  your  explanation. 
I'm  too  thoroughly  disgusted  with  you  for  making  it 
at  all." 

Dunster's  heart  sank  away  from  his  breast.  This 
was  frightful — frightful!  He  was  being  accused — 
Dunster  Thorpe,  prizeman,  Doctor  of  Philosophy, 
Assistant  Professor,  was  actually  being  accused  of 
a  yellow  streak — of  not  being  a  thoroughbred!  But 
surely  the  accusation  was  false;  atrociously  unfair, 
at  least!  The  circumstances.  .  .  .  He  began  talk 
ing  volubly,  desperately;  pointing  out  to  Dr.  Har- 
rod — and  to  himself — just  those  little  differences 
which  make  all  the  difference  in  a  scrupulous  ques 
tion  of  this  kind. 

"But  don't  you  see,  sir,  I  could  easily  have  re 
assured  Mrs.  Sterrett  some  other  way?  I  could 
have  given  her  twenty  plausible  reasons  for  Miss 
Chenoworth's  being  in  my  room;  any  one  of  them 
would  have  satisfied  her.  It  would  have  been  much 
pleasanter  for  me  to  lie  out  of  what  was  merely  a 
somewhat  awkward  situation.  But  I  wanted  to  help 
her — Miss  Chenoworth.  I  really  wanted  Mrs. 
Sterrett's  advice.  As  I  told  you,  Mrs.  Sterrett's 
been  more  like  my  mother  than  my  landlady.,  I 


116  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

knew  what  I  said  would  be  sacred  to  her.  I  still 
think  I  was  right.  And  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Mysie's 
idiotic  outbreak  here,  I  believe  Mrs.  Sterrett  and 
I  could  have  kept  the  whole  thing  quiet — and  I  be 
lieve  Mrs.  Sterrett  could  have  helped  Miss  Cheno- 
worth  more  than  anybody's  likely  to  be  able  to  do 
now!  What  you  fail  to  see  is,  Dr.  Harrod,  that 
I  wasn't  trying  to  get  out  of  anything;  I  was  hon 
estly  hoping  to " 

Dr.  Harrod' s  desk-telephone  rang  briskly  on  a 
frivolous,  inconsequent  note. 

"Pardon  me,  Thorpe." 

The  President  of  Alden  seated  himself  before  the 
instrument  and  detached  the  receiver  slowly.  He 
listened  with  attention  for  some  little  time  before 
replying.  Then,  without  special  emphasis,  he  said: 
"Very  well,  Miss  Dart.  When  I  ring,  send  her  in." 
And  he  clicked  back  the  receiver. 

"Miss  Chenoworth — "  he  explained,  without 
turning  to  Dunster.  "Miss  Dart  told  her  you  were 
with  me,  and  she  particularly  asks  to  see  us  to 
gether." 

The  whole  room  tilted  beneath  Dunster's  feet; 
then,  using  him  as  a  sort  of  pivot,  whirled  with  a 
smooth  rush  round  him.  He  clutched  a  chair-back 
until  this  extraordinary  cyclic  movement  slowed 
down,  ceased,  and  the  floor  settled  noiselessly  to  its 
former  horizontal  plane. 

"Are  you  ill,  Thorpe?"  asked  Dr.  Harrod. 

"No,  sir.  A  second  of  vertigo.  My  digestion. 
.  .  .  I've  been  subject  to  it  for  years.  .  .  ." 

"Shall  I  ring,  then?" 

It  is  probable  that  not  a  full  minute  elapsed  before 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  117 

Dunster  straightened  up  and  answered  firmly  and 
quietly:  "Do.  But  please,  when  she  comes,  ask  her 
not  to  say  anything  until  I've  made — a  somewhat 
difficult  confession — to  both  of  you." 

Dr.  Harrod  nodded  curtly  and  pressed  a  button 
on  his  desk. 


XXII 

T3UT  as  Lilia  came  in  to  them,  Dr.  Harrod  for- 
••-*  got  at  once  his  promise  to  Dunster  and  simply 
hurried  to  meet  her  and  take  her  hands.  "You  poor 
child — what  has  happened!"  he  exclaimed. 

Lilia's  lips  twitched  themselves  into  a  heart-break 
ing  little  smile. 

"Do  I  show  it  so  plainly — that  I've  been  killed,  I 
mean  ?  Well,  it's  true.  .  .  .  I'm  not  alive  any  more 
— not  any  more.  I'm  just  walking  about." 

"You've  been  to  see  your  mother?" 

"Yes.  She  won't  be  over  this  morning;  IVe  come 
in  her  place. — But  that  hardly  counts  at  all- now." 
She  drew  her  hands  from  Dr.  Harrod's  and  turned 
to  Dunster.  "I'm  glad  you're  here.  I  just  want  to 
say  good-by  to  you,  and — and  make  certain  you're 
not  in  any  trouble  because  of  me — because  of  last 
night?" 

"I'm  in  great  trouble  because  of  last  night,"  said 
Dunster. 

"Oh  ...  I'm  sorry." 

"I'm  not.    I'm  glad." 

She  stared  at  him,  puzzled;  then — "Don't  worry 
any  more,"  she  begged  him.  "I'm  sure  I  can  make 
Dr.  Harrod  understand " 


118  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"Please!"  Dunster  broke  in.  "I'll  do  that.  Won't 
you  both  listen  to  me !  But  you  must!"  He  stepped 
quickly  past  Lilia  and  up  to  Dr.  Harrod,  speaking 
rapidly  but  distinctly — as  if  he  feared  what  he  had 
to  say  might  be  missed,  or  not  waited  for.  "You 
were  perfectly  right,  sir,  to  accept  my  resignation. 
I've  been  playing  a  rotten  game — and  what's  worse, 
not  even  feeling  how  rotten  it  was.  The  fact  is, 
I've  always  thought  myself  just  about  perfect — 
every  way.  I'm  only  beginning  to  see  ...  no 
matter!  This  isn't  posing — heroics;  it's  so,  that's 
all.  After  I  left  your  house  last  night  I  made  up 
my  mind  to  marry  Lilia,  if  I  could  get  her.  I  sup 
pose  I  didn't  doubt  I  could;  and  I  told  myself  I  was 
in  love  with  her.  Perhaps  I  was — a  little;  but  not 
enough  to  make  me  dream  of  marriage,  if  I  hadn't 
known  that  her  father  was  influential  and  rich — if 
I  hadn't  realized  how  useful  he  might  be  to  me! 
I'd  been  thinking  about  that — subconsciously ;  I  must 
have  been — it  struck  me  so  suddenly  and  all-of-a- 
heap  on  the  way  home !  I'm  ambitious,  sir  ...  I 
want — oh,  I  want  the  earth !  I  thought  I  saw  how 
Lilia's  father  might  help  me  to  a  piece  of  it,  any 
way.  Well — all  that  time  she  was  in  trouble — some 
trouble  I  don't  understand  yet.  But  she  came  to  me 
about  it — to  my  door.  And  then  all  I  could  think  of 
was — the  uncomfortable  fix  she  might  get  me  into. 
I  didn't  even  want  to  let  her  step  inside  a  minute, 
although  she  was  shivering  with  cold.  Why,  she 
almost  had  to  force  her  way  in  past  me!"  Dunster 
laughed — to  call  it  that;  it  was  strange  laughter. 
"So  far,  so  bad,  Dr.  Harrod.  As  for  the  rest,  you 
know  that  already — but  Lilia  doesn't."  He  turned 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  119 

to  her.  "We  were  seen  through  the  window  by  my 
landlady's  servant,  just  before  I  pulled  down  the 
shades.  It  was  my  landlady,  Mrs.  Sterrett,  who 
called  out  to  me  just  as  you  left.  And  this  is  what 
I  did: — I  told  Mrs.  Sterrett  one  of  my  students — 
a  hysterical  sort  of  girl — was  in  love  with  me  and 
had  come  to  my  door  and  made  a  scene.  I'd  hacl 
to  let  her  inside  to  reason  with  her.  Of  course,  I 
thought  I  was  safe  enough — telling  Mrs.  Sterrett 
that.  But  I  wasn't.  .  .  .  Mysie — that's  the  serv 
ant;  she's  a  half-witted  creature — came  here  this 
morning  with  her  story.  So  Mrs.  Sterrett  was  sent 
for,  and  I  happened  to  arrive  just  as  she  did  and 
arranged  to  see  Dr.  Harrod  with  her.  Well — I  told 
him  the  same  wretched  stuff  I  told  her  last  night; 
I  felt  I  had  to.  And  I  guess  I  tried  to  make  him 
think  me  a  sort  of  modern  Sir  Galahad,  to  boot! 
But  you  see,  I  didn't  know  then — not  till  Dr.  Har 
rod  mentioned  it — that  you  had  been  caught  out  of 
bounds  last  night.  At  any  rate,  Dr.  Harrod  pretty 
well  saw  through  all  my  crawling  attempts  to  justify 
and  glorify  myself;  and  when  I  tried  a  final  bluff  and 
said  if  he  wasn't  willing  to  trust  me  he  could  have 
my  resignation — well,  he  took  my  word — let  me 
quietly  kick  myself  out  of  Alden  by  the  back  door, 
once  for  all. — There.  Thank  you  both  for  listening. 
I  feel — cleaner,  somehow.  Whether  I  really  am  or 
not  .  .  ." 

Carefully  avoiding  their  eyes,  Dunster  started 
away  from  them  up  the  magenta-red  strip  toward  the 
door. 

Lilia  seized  Dr.  Harrod's  arm;  clung  to  him. 
"Don't  let  him  go !"  she  cried.  "Not  like  this  I  He 


120  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

hasn't  even  yet  told  you  the  truth — for  all  his  hero 
ics.  I  did  go  to  him  because  I'm  in  love  with  him. 
I  don't  know  why  I  am — but  I  am.  I  was  too  un 
happy  last  night — I  just  wanted  to  see  him — be  near 
him.  I  told  him  so  ...  and  he — he  asked  me  to 
marry  him." 

"My  poor  Lilia,"  groaned  Dr.  Harrod,  uwhat  am 
I  to  do  or  say!  How  can  I  help  you — either  of 
you!  You  .  .  .  both  of  you  .  .  .  amazing!  I 
can't  make  you  out." 

Dunster  swung  sharply  back  to  them.  "No — 
how  could  you !  We  haven't  even  begun  to  under 
stand  ourselves. — May  I  see  her  alone,  sir,  a  few 
moments?  Will  you  trust  me  now  that  far — ?" 

"Well,  Lilia—?"  asked  Dr.  Harrod. 

"Please." 

"Ah! — I've  a  letter  or  two  to  dictate.  I'll  just 
step  out  with  them  to  Miss  Dart."  He  quietly  freed 
his  arm  from  Lilia's  unconsciously  tightening  grasp, 
gathered  up  almost  at  random  some  loose  papers 
from  his  desk,  and  so — without  an  added  word — 
left  them  to  themselves. 

But  to  Miss  Dart,  in  her  small  outer  office,  he  said, 
drawing  out  his  watch:  "It's  past  your  lunch  hour. 
Don't  wait,  please.  I  wish  to  telephone  Ruth  from 
out  here — privately.  I'll  put  through  the  call." 
Miss  Dart,  going  for  her  trim  nutria  coat,  informed 
the  shadows  of  the  coat-closet  that  she  had  never 
seen  the  President  looking  so  old  and  harassed.  No 
one  knew  better  than  she  that  something  portentous 
was  in  the  air.  It  had  been  a  disturbing  morning, 
indeed!  She  felt  distinctly  apprehensive.  Yet  her 


LILIA  CHENOWORTH  121 

table  companions  were  entirely  unaware  of  the  fact 
when  she  took  her  place  among  them. 

"What's  up  over  there  ?"  they  eagerly  demanded. 

"Up—?"  (Cheerfully.)  "Oh— you  mean  the 
ambulance  ?  A  servant  brought  over  a  message  for 
the  President  and  had  an  epileptic  fit  right  in  my 
office.  Imagine!" 

They  tried  to. 

XXIII 

T  IFE  is  an  artist  who  attempts  everything,  even 
-"  the  impossible;  yet  preserves  in  the  large,  one 
must  suppose,  some  sort  of  recognizable  pattern. 
But  in  the  contemptuous  mishandling  of  detail — or 
in  blind  indifference  to  it — life  is  surely  the  most 
slovenly  and  gauche  of  craftsmen.  He  is  constantly 
throwing  together  scenes  inherently  awkward — a 
mere  hash  of  discordant  possibilities  and  mixed  emo 
tions:  scenes,  in  a  word,  which  simply  will  not  play! 

The  instant  the  door  closed  behind  Dr.  Harrod — 
the  instant  she  was  left  alone  with  Dunster — Lilia 
shrank  in  every  nerve-filament  from  the  disastrous 
futility  of  their  situation.  This  was  sheer  instinct 
with  her;  pure,  immediate  feeling.  She  didn't  need 
to  analyze  the  situation ;  perhaps  she  could  not  have 
done  so.  Simply,  she  found  herself  in  a  churning 
chaos  of  circumstance  and  emotion  that  had  no 
rhythm  of  its  own  and  promised  no  orderly  issue ; — 
and  she  knew  at  once  she  could  not  go  on  with  it. 

uOh!"  she  protested.  "Five  minutes — ten — what 
good  will  it  do !  We  know  nothing  of  each  other. 


122  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

We're  not  even — friends.  The  best  thing  for  both 
of  us  is  just  to  get  away  from  each  other — quickly — 
once  for  all !  It  would  take  us  a  lifetime  of  explain 
ing — excusing — trying  to  understand  .  .  ." 

"Yes,"  said  Dunster — ua  lifetime.  That's  just 
what  I  want  it  to  take.  Lilia — you've  got  to  marry 
me.  Perhaps  I'm  no  good — but  I  don't  believe  it. 
I  still  believe  in  myself.  But  if  you  give  me  up  now 
as  hopeless —  Lilia ! — you  do  love  me !  I  can't 
even  consider  giving  you  up.  I  won't  I" 

For  all  reply  came  the  slight  shrug  he  had  so  dis 
liked;  which  only  last  night  had  jarred  on  him  as 
affected  and  insincere.  And  now  it  seemed  to  him 
wholly  sincere;  a  tragic  expression  of  hopelessness. 
He  watched  her  eyes  brim  over.  ...  It  was  intol 
erable  that  she  would  not  come  to  him — cry  her 
heart  out  in  his  arms. 

"Lilia,"  his  passion  pleaded — his  new  depth  of 
passion,  but  a  few  minutes  jfclTwhicrryet  seemed 
to  him  now  the  very  foundations  and  meaning  of 
his  life — "Lilia,  can't  you  let  me  share  all  that — 
whatever  it  is?" 

She  turned  on  him  almost  fiercely.  "How  simple 
it  seems  to  you,  doesn't  it!  Now  that  all  of  a  sud 
den  you  want  me  so  much  I  And  how  brave  and 
noble  you've  been  to  make  a  full  confession  to  me 
before  Dr.  Harrod — just  so  you  could  have  the  men 
tal  relief  of  feeling  'clean'  again!  Clean — perhaps 
you  do  feel  clean.  But  I  don't.  I  feel  as  if  you'd 
used  me  for  a  rag  to  polish  your  conscience  on." 

"Nonsense !  Lilia — I  love  you."  He  was  swiftly 
at  her  side;  his  arms  about  her.  "I  love  you.  I 
can't  think  of  anything  else.  It's  no  good  your  ask- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  123 

ing  me  to — or  abusing  me.  You  said  last  night  I  was 
'horrible' — well,  I  am.  Worse  than  you  know. 
You've  made  me  feel  that  at  last.  .  .  .  But  we  love 
each  other — don't  we — don't  we !  Let's  forget  the 
rest  —  everything  .  .  .  start  from  this  moment  — 
now !  —  build  on  that!" 

He  would  have  kissed  her;  but  she  strained  back 
from  him — then,  unexpectedly,  almost  roughly, 
caught  his  head  between  her  hands  and  pressed  her 
cheek  tight  to  his.  The  next  instant  she  struggled 
free  from  him — arching  her  body  to  thrust  him  from 
her;  almost  crouching  before  him  like  some  fright 
ened  animal  bent  on  flight,  while  she  snatched  the 
air  in  a  sharp,  shallow  panting  that  visibly  wracked 
her. 

"No — no.  .  .  .  I'm  the  horrible  one.  .  .  .  I'm 
not  even  Lilia  Chenoworth.  .  .  .  God  knows  who 
or  what  I^^fcL^-  •  Anyway — it  doesn't  matter. 
...  I  suj^)se  mo^|er  wanted  someone  —  blindly 
— as  I  want  you !  .  .  .  I  don't  even  like  you  .  .  . 
We're  a  charming  pair — mother  and  I.  We  belong 
together.  .  .  .  Let  me  go!  Laissez-moi — laissez- 
moi,  je  vous  dis — laissez  .  .  ." 

Dunster  had  seen  her  reel  and  stumble  and  had 
leaped  to  save  her.  She  was  unconscious  now  in  his 
arms.  Ruth  Harrod  and  her  father  were  hurrying 
toward  him,  followed  by  a  tall,  sandy  young  man 
with  a  homely,  irregular  face. 

"Lilia's  fainted,"  babbled  Dunster  stupidly — 
"fainted,  you  see — what  .  .  ." 

"Well,  don't  be  a  fool!"  barked  the  tall,  sandy 
young  man.  "Lay  her  down  on  the  floor.  That's  it. 
Thanks." 


BOOK  II 


From  Orlando  Harrod  to  Anson  Chenoworth:  a 
cablegram. 

Contrary  to  your  cabled  instructions  Lilia  sailed 
Saturday  on  the  "Bremen"  making  Naples  Novem 
ber  sixteenth.  Against  my  earnest  plea  accompanied 
by  her  mother.  Have  written  fully. 

II 

Dr.  Franklin  P.  Gilman  to  Miss  Betty  Gilman,  his 
sister,  a  Senior  at  Alden. 

DEAR  BIMPS, 

Keep  this  letter  under  your  hat,  if  you  ever  wear 
one.  I  don't  care  to  be  gossiped  about  by  all  your 
dear  little  prattling  pals.  Of  course  —  they're  all 
lovely  girls  and  wonderfully  earnest  and  all  that! 
But  you  know  what  I  mean.  But  see  here,  old 
woman,  next  time  you  ask  me  up  for  a  quiet  week 
end  with  you,  just  remind  me  to  go  into  training  first! 
Then  maybe  I  can  stand  the  strain.  And  I've  had 
the  damndest  week  since  leaving  you!  However,  I 
yanked  that  queer  kid  and  her  awful  mother  down 
to  the  boat  all  right  this  morning,  and  managed  to 

125 


126  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

slip  a  word  to  the  Dutch  surgeon  before  I — so  to 
speak — kissed  them  good-by.  God  knows  what  will 
happen  to  the  kid!  Just  to  show  she  was  game  she'd 
dolled  herself  up  regardless,  war-paint  and  every 
thing,  and  looked  as  cool  and  tempting  as  the  pro 
verbial  cuke.  Mother  wasn't  so  worse  to  look  at 
herself — considering.  But  it's  a  shame  I  didn't 
shoot  a  little  more  dope  into  her  that  first  day  and 
pass  her  quietly  along  to — you  know  where!  If  she 
isn't  a  sinister  old  bird  and  no  fit  company  for  a  nice 
kid,  I  miss  my  guess.  Because  she  is  a  nice  kid — 
if  she  does  dye  herself  pink!  Different.  She's  a  new 
kind  to  me,  anyway,  and  I  thought  I'd  been  round 
some.  I  like  the  way  she'll  stand  up  to  anybody. 
Why,  even  that  day  she  keeled  over  in  Prexy's  office 
she  didn't  really  collapse  "inside."  When  she  came 
to  she  was  so  weak  she  could  hardly  stand,  but  her 
grit  was  all  there.  Simply  announced  she  didn't  care 
to  discuss  the  matter  with  anybody,  and  then  took 
Miss  Harrod  by  the  hand  and  walked  out  of  the 
room  with  her.  Lord  knows  what  the  fuss  was  all 
about — or  perhaps  by  this  time  you  and  your  little 
pals  have  the  jump  on  His  Lordship.  If  so,  please 
put  me  wise.  I'm  human,  too.  But  I  rather  suspect 
your  dear  Professor  Thorpe  was  mixed  up  in  it;  I 
mean,  I  know  he  was — but  I  don't  know  how.  He 
made  about  as  much  of  a  hit  with  me  as  a  Chinaman. 
No,  I  know  that  isn't  fair — you  needn't  explain.  But 
that's  how  it  was. 

As  for  Lilia — yes,  I  jumped  right  in,  as  I  always 
do,  and  called  her  Lilia;  but  I  couldn't  get  her  past 
"Dr.  Oilman"  with  me! — if  she  was  a  man,  and  I 
wasn't  writing  my  super-refined  sister,  I'd  say  she 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  127 

"has /    But,  of  course,  I  can't  say  it.     Only,  it's 

a  short  ugly  word  and  begins  with  G.  The  next  let 
ter's  U,  the  next  T,  and  the  last  is  S.  Piece  it  to- 
gether  some  time  when  you're  all  alone  and  can  blush 
unseen. 

Well,  here's  the  stuff  you  are  particularly  to  keep 
under  your  hat.  Lilia  told  me  she  was  acting  not 
only  against  Dr.  Harrod's  advice  but  against  her 
father's  cabled  instructions  by  sailing  for  Naples  and 
taking  her  mother  along.  She  said  her  father  and 
mother  had  lived  apart  a  long  time,  and  after  ob 
serving  mamma  professionally  and  otherwise  for  al 
most  two  weeks  it  isn't  very  difficult  for  me  to  guess 
why.  I  don't  know  whether  the  old  birds  are  regu 
larly  divorced  or  not,  but  I  rather  guess  not.  It  has 
also  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  they  never  took  the 
trouble  to  be  married  at  all,  in  which  case  Lilia' s  po 
sition  is  a  little — ambiguous.  There!  you  say  I've 
no  natural  delicacy. — How  about  that!  I'm  only 
guessing,  though.  The  kid  kept  her  own  counsel, 
chiefly ;  just  told  me  enough  to  string  me  along  and 
make  me  useful.  No — /  take  that  back.  She  was 
open  as  all  outdoors  with  me — up  to  a  certain  point. 
When  she  asked  me  to  help  her  with  her  get-away — 
that  was  the  very  evening  you  thought  I  left  Alden, 
but  I  didn't  get  of  till  7  A.M. — she  began  by  saying 
she  couldn't  really  take  me  into  her  confidence.  So 
all  she  told  me  was  what  I've  mentioned  above,  and 
the  fact  that  she'd  made  up  her  mind — flat,  and  no 
arguing  about  it! — to  go  home  to  her  father  and  to 
hang  right  on  to  mother.  Dr.  Harrod  was  backing 
up  her  father's  instructions,  but  that  wasn't  going  to 
make  any  difference.  She  had  money  enough  to  put 


128  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

the  thing  through  and  she  meant  to  do  it.  But  if  I 
could  help  her  with  the  tickets,  etc.,  and — most  im 
portant  of  all — help  her  keep  her  mother  as  straight 
as  possible,  under  the  circumstances,  till  they  sailed, 
she  would  never  forget  my  kindness.  Finally,  she 
wanted  to  slip  of  from  Alden  at  once,  or  before 
breakfast  next  morning — so  as  to  avoid  any  further 
discussion  with  Dr.  Harrod;  and  while  she  was  wait' 
ing  in  New  York  for  the  boat  she  wanted  to  keep  her 
exact  whereabouts  dark.  And  if  I  didn't  feel  I 
ought  to  help  her  in  this  way,  she'd  understand  per- 
fectly! 

Naturally,  I  agreed  to  help  her.  If  I  hadn't,  she'd 
have  gone  right  ahead  anyway — and  I  felt  it  was  bet 
ter  for  some  more  or  less  responsible  male  person  to 
keep  an  eye  on  her.  But  I  was  mean — or  sensible — 
enough  to  double-cross  her,  first.  I  suppose  all  Al- 
den's  still  talking  about  the  way  she  had  herself 
moved  over  to  her  mother's  rooms — the  afternoon  of 
the  day  she  fainted  in  Prexy's  office.  Well,  then, 
after  I  said  I'd  stand  by  her,  she  left  me  to  pack 
mother  up — and  it  must  have  been  some  job! — and 
I  beat  it  right  across  to  see  Prexy.  Just  to  remind 
you,  that  old  boy's  the  finest  thing  in  Alden,  Bimps, 
and  don't  you  or  your  little  pals  ever  forget  it!  I 
put  the  thing  to  him — straight;  I  saw  I  could.  "I 
don't  know  anything  about  the  rights  and  wrongs  of 
all  this,"  I  said,  "but  I  do  know  Miss  Chenoworth 
has  settled  one  thing — she's  going  home  and  she's 
going  to  take  her  mother.  And  since  she's  deter 
mined,  and  it  isn't  a  criminal  action,  and  she  has  the 
ready  money  to  put  it  through,  it  strikes  me,  sir, 
you  d  better  just  let  me  act  as  your  secret  agent  to  ar- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  129 

range  all  details  and  watch  over  Miss  Chenoworth 
until  the  boat  pulls  out"  We  didn't  have  to  talk 
long;  he  saw  the  point  at  once,  and — frankly,  Bimps 
— /  think  he  was  enormously  relieved.  So  every 
thing  has  worked  out  all  right — in  a  sense,  though 
I'm  not  happy  about  the  trick  I  played  on  the  kid. 
Still,  as  you  know  and  often  inform  me,  I'm  a  pretty 
coarse-grained  customer,  and  I've  always  thought  the 
end  justifies  the  means — when  I'm  absolutely  certain 
the  end's  O.K. 

Too  tired  to  write  any  more  just  now.  I  stood  on 
that  damn  pier  in  a  cold  northwest  wind  for  half  an 
hour  after  they  put  me  of  the  boat,  and  you  know 
what  that  sort  of  thing  does  to  one's  feet  and  nervous 
system.  Mother  went  below  at  once,  I  guess.  But 
the  kid,  game  to  the  end,  and  wrapped  up  in  about  a 
million  dollars'  worth  of  sables,  hung  over  the  rail 
of  the  promenade  deck  and  smiled  and  flicked  her 
silly  little  hanky  and  somehow,  spite  of  herself,  got 
over  the  impression  of  being  so  damn  lonesome  and 
miserable  that  I  couldn't  bear  not  to  stand  there  wav 
ing  my  frozen  mits  till  the  ropes  dropped.  Wish  I 
knew  what  her  dad's  like.  I  saw  a  show  of  his  once 
in  Chi — brainy  stuff,  but  sort  of  of  color.  Well,  she 
promised  to  drop  me  a  line  from  the  other  side  and 
let  me  know  the  worst,  but  she  won't — and  that's 
that.  Now  I'm  going  to  bed.  .  .  . 


130  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


III 

Dunster  Thorpe  to  John  Carrick,  his  uncle. 

DEAR  UNCLE  JOHN, 

You  and  Aunt  Emily  will  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  I've  decided  to  leave  Alden  at  the  end  of  the 
college  year,  in  order  to  devote  myself  exclusively  to 
literary  work.  I  am  very  anxious  to  leave  at  the  end 
of  this  term,  but  Dr.  Harrod  has  asked  me,  if  I  will, 
to  stay  on  until  June — as  it  would  be  difficult  for 
him  to  obtain  a  substitute  teacher  at  short  notice. 
Also,  as  he  pointed  out,  if  I  were  to  leave  mid-season 
there  would  certainly  be  some  ill-natured  specu 
lation — since  even  a  college  faculty  isn't  exempt 
from  that  sort  of  thing — as  to  whether  or  not  my 
resignation  had  been  asked  for!  So  I  shall  stay  on, 
pretty  reluctantly,  till  after  the  final  examinations, 
for  I  am  eager  now  to  be  free  and  give  myself  wholly 
to  the  writing  I've  long  hoped  and  planned  to  do. 

You  will  naturally  think  this  step  somewhat  rash, 
but  I  believe,  on  the  contrary,  it's  the  wisest  decision 
I  have  ever  made.  During  the  past  years  I've  been 
able  to  save  up  enough  to  keep  me  going,  if  I  live 
simply — and  a  single  man  can  live  very  cheaply,  I'm 
told,  in  New  York,  if  he  learns  the  ropes — enough 
for  a  full  year  of  work  at  least;  and  I  feel  confident 
the  year's  work  will  not  be  wasted.  The  mere  finan 
cial  rewards  of  literature  are  much  greater  and  more 
dependable  than  they  once  were,  and  I  shall  expect 
very  soon  to  increase  rather  than  decrease  my  in- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  131 

come.  Moreover,  teaching — in  itself — I've  never 
been  able  to  consider  a  satisfying  career.  Pleasant 
as  it  is,  there  is  something  fatally  narrowing  about 
the  academic  life.  In  short,  I  can  hardly  wait  now 
for  my  period  of  servitude  to  end.  A  writer  is  at 
least  his  own  master. 

I'm  very  sorry  that  for  the  first  time  I  shan't  be 
able  this  year  to  spend  the  Holidays  with  Aunt  Emily 
and  you.  I  shall  miss  being  with  you  all  more  than 
I  can  say.  But  I  feel  I  must  put  in  the  three  weeks 
of  vacation  in  preparing  the  way  for  next  year's  ven 
ture.  When  the  term  ends,  I  shall  go  straight  to 
New  York  and  try  there  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
as  many  publishers  and  editors  as  possible  —  try, 
that  is,  to  familiarize  myself  with  all  the  more  prac 
tical  side  of  the  literary  life.  I  want  to  get  all  the 
opportunities,  and  all  the  difficulties,  too,  squarely 
before  me  now,  so  as  to  waste  little  time  over  them 
next  year.  I  shall  not  be  content  to  run  about  then 
asking  for  casual  reviewing  jobs,  etc. — far  from  it! 
When  I  begin  to  write,  I  mean  to  tackle  something 
important — something  which  will  count  at  once,  if 
well  done,  as  a  long  step  ahead.  Fortunately,  I've 
several  letters  of  introduction — good  ones, — and  a 
Harvard  friend,  now  one  of  the  editors  of  "The 
New  Age"  in  New  York,  has  offered  me  his  rooms 
over  the  Holidays.  But,  all  the  same,  I  shall  feel 
rather  lonesome  and  out  of  it  when  Christmas  comes. 

However,  I'm  sure  that  you  and  Aunt  Emily  will 
agree  that  this  is  the  right  thing  for  me  to  do,  under 
the  circumstances.  Be  sure  to  give  my  very  bestest 
love  to  Aunt  Emily  and  all  the  Carrick  hopefuls.  Of 
course,  I  shall  write  again  before  Christmas,  and 


132  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

I  count  on  hearing  both  from  you  and  Aunt  Emily 
very  soon.  I  want  you  to  wish  the  "rising  young 
author"  good  luck! 


IV 

Myrtle  Frame  to  Eunice  Gerken,  a  bosom  friend. 

DARLING  NIKKY, 

Of  all  the  excitement  we've  been  having!  I  can't 
begin  to  tell  you  all  about  it — it  would  take  me  hours 
and  hours!  And  anyway,  nobody  knows  anything 
for  certain — just  what  did  happen,  I  mean.  But 
it's  all  terribly  exciting.  You  know  what  I  wrote  you 
about  how  Idabelle  and  I  couldn't  imagine  why  Lilia 
was  always  slipping  out  at  night  after  hours  and 
risking  getting  caught  and  how  terribly  mysterious 
she  was  about  it  and  how  I  said  right  along  she  must 
be  crazy  about  some  "man"  and  must  be  meeting  him 
and  how  Ide  said  I  was  plumb  crazy  myself!  Well! 
She  did  get  caught  and  I  still  think  it  was  a  man, 
but  nobody  knows — and,  anyway,  her  mother  turned 
up  and  Lilia  went  of  with  her — after  she'd  been 
caught,  I  mean — and  the  story's  going  about  that 
her  mother  was  found  "dead  drunk"  in  the  Alden 
Inn — imagine!  And  I  told  you  how  Lilia  painted 
and  the  awful  things  she  said  all  the  time  and  so  you 
see  I  knew  all  the  time  that's  the  kind  of  girl  she 
was!  And  some  of  the  girls  are  saying  Prexy's  got 
ten  himself  in  hot  water  bringing  her  here — like  I 
told  you.  Anyway,  I'm  just  sick  about  it  all.  But 
nobody  really  knows  anything.  But  it's  the  most  ex- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  133 

citing  thing  ever  happened,  and  I  wish  I  could  see 
you  Thanksgiving,  but  I'm  going  with  Gertie  to  Bos 
ton,  but  when  I  see  you  Xmas  I  can  tell  you  all  about 
it  for  hours  and  hours.  And  Prof.  Thorpe  is  going 
to  quit  next  June — you  know,  the  one  I  said  his  eyes 
always  gave  me  the  shivers  sort  of — and  some  of  the 
girls  think  he  was  mixed  up  in  it — but  nobody 
knows  anything — but  I  don't  and  never  shall.  But 
Ide  does — only  she  won't  talk  about  it  any  more 
and  I  don't  get  on  with  her  near  so  well  as  I  did, 
anyway,  and  I  hope  I  can  room  with  someone  else 
next  year.  But  don't  tell  anybody  I  said  that,  will 
you!  Have  you  seen  Frank  Baum  much  lately?  I 
don't  care  whether  I  never  see  him  again,  for  my 
part!  But  I'm  crazy  for  vacation  to  come  now,  but 
I'm  scared  stiff  about  my  exams!  I'm  working  terri 
bly  hard. 

Ever  so  lovingly, 

MYRTLE. 


Lilia  to  Dr.  Harrod,  from  shipboard. 

.  .  .  No  one  has  ever  been  so  kind  to  me  as  you, 
not  even  father.  His  was  a  different  kindness. 
Father's  fond  of  me  in  a  lazy  sort  of  way.  So  long 
as  I  amused  him  he  liked  to  have  me  with  him.  If 
I  bothered  him,  even  a  little,  he  always  sent  me  of, 
or  went  of  himself.  I  soon  learned  not  to  bother 
him.  When  I  was  with  him,  I  tried  to  be  just  as 
dainty  and  amusing  as  I  could,  and  he  liked  that.  I 
suppose  it  flattered  him.  So  it's  a  lucky  thing  I  was 


134  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

born  a  little  bit  nice  to  look  at  and  a  little  bit  clever 
— or  I  should  always  have  been  much  lonelier  than  I 
was.  If  I'd  been  plain  or  stupid  or  both,  father — / 
can  see  now — wouldn't  have  had  much  to  do  with 
me.  He  wouldn't  have  been  cruel  or  even  cross — 
he'd  simply  have  ignored  me.  I  should  have  moped 
about  with  a  governess  all  day.  Of  course,  I'm  tell 
ing  you  of  the  time  after  mother  left  us.  Not  that 
it  made  much  difference — for  I  hardly  knew  mother , 
except  as  something  gorgeous  to  look  at  and  not  to 
disturb. 

I  never  had  any  friends  of  my  own  age.  Father 
never  seemed  to  know  anybody  with  children — at 
least,  anybody  whose  children  were  ever  with  them. 
Sometimes,  as  a  little  girl — before  mother  disap 
peared — I'd  play  with  children  on  the  beach  at 
Trouville  or  Biarritz  for  a  few  weeks  and  get  fond 
of  them;  but  then  we'd  move  on  and  I'd  never  see 
them  again.  So  father  was  my  only  hope,  you  see — 
the  only  thing  in  my  life  that  stayed  there. 

You  know  how  delightful — how  charming  and 
witty — father  can  be  when  he  tries!  I  was  very 
happy  with  him — almost.  I  always  told  myself  we 
were  great  chums — but  I'm  beginning  to  feel  I  never 
quite  believed  it.  There  was  something  missing — 
always.  I  can't  give  it  a  name,  but  it's  something 
rather  important  that  just  wasn't  there.  It's  strange. 
I'm  always  thinking  and  saying  things  about  father 
that  contradict  each  other — and  yet  they're  all  true. 
How  can  that  be?  Poor  father!  He  never  took  the 
trouble  to  hide  anything  from  me,  but  he  was  always 
insisting  that  he  hated  the  sort  of  life  he  led,  and 
blaming  himself  on  my  account.  He  could  be  dread- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  135 

fully  sentimental  about  it,  too.  Used  to  pity  him- 
self — and  me — and  all  that.  And  all  the  time  I 
couldn't  help  feeling  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  and 
indifferent  underneath.  Didn't  really  care — only 
liked  to  think  he  did. — Oh,  Dr.  Harrod — am  I  be 
ing  unfair  to  him?  For  I  do  love  him! — and  I  want 
so  to  believe  he  couldn't  ignore  me  finally  overnight, 
if  I  should  suddenly  strike  him  now  as  a  nuisance! 
Well,  I  shall  find  out  soon,  I  suppose.  He'll  be  wait 
ing  for  us  at  Naples,  without  a  doubt,  and  he'll  be 
furious  because  I  flatly  disobeyed  him  and  brought 
mother  along — but  that  doesn't  bother  me.  It  won't 
take  me  long  to  make  him  see  there  was  nothing  else 
I  could  possibly  do. — But  I  can't  explain  that  to  you 
yet — not  till  after  I've  had  my  talk  with  father — and 
perhaps  not  even  then.  I  hate  being  mysterious  with 
you  and  Ruth. 

Oh — I'm  sure  you  must  both  wish  you'd  never 
even  heard  of  me!  But  please  never,  either  of  you, 
stop  caring  a  little  that  I  exist.  Because —  Do  you 
remember  the  ghosts  in  the  Inferno — blown  round 
and  round  like  dead  leaves?  Sometimes  I  think  I'm 
one  of  them. 

There's  just  one  more  thing  I  must  try  to  say  to 
you.  It's  about  Professor  Thorpe 

Don't  simply  dislike  him.  Don't  give  him  up. 
I  know  you  do  dislike  him  now — at  least,  I'm  afraid 
you  do.  But  if  you  could  only  take  the  trouble  to 
understand  him  and  be  his  friend — ?  Or  if  Ruth 
could?  Even  if  he's  leaving  Alden,  I  mean. 

I  can't  express  what  I  feel  about  him.  Sometimes 
I  think  I  dislike  him  more  than  anybody  I've  ever 
met — but  in  the  very  midst  of  disliking  him  I'm  de- 


136  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

fending  him  to  myself,  excusing  him,  explaining 
away  his  faults —  And  I  do  know  one  thing! 
Whatever  he  is — he  isn't  commonplace.  There's 
a  struggling  flame  in  him — deep  down — all  damped 
and  choked  with  ugly  sodden  things —  //  only  it 
doesn't  get  smothered  out! 

What  a  miserable  letter  to  send  you — but  all  my 
affection  goes  with  it,  so  I'll  mail  it  before  we  land. 
I  often  wish  I  were  your  daughter — Ruth's  sister.  I 
should  have  been  so  different  then —  But  I  wish  lots 
of  things. 

After  this,  when  I  write,  I  shall  write  to  Ruth.  I 
mustn't  worry  you  like  this  again.  .  .  . 


VI 

Anson  Chenoworth  to  Lilia,  delivered  on  the  dock, 
at  Naples,  by  the  hand  of  a  custom  inspector. 

/  have  engaged  a  suite  for  you  and  your  mother  at 
the  Hotel  Parthenope.  I  am  not  stopping  there,  as 
I  will  not  meet  your  mother,  nor  run  any  risk  of  do- 
ing  so.  When  you  personally  are  ready  to  see  me, 
speak  to  the  concierge  of  your  hotel,  and,  if  you 
are  alone,  he  will  send  you  on  to  me  by  cab.  I  hope 
you  will  come  at  once;  but  if  you  are  too  tired,  or  ill 
from  the  voyage,  you  may  wait  until  to-morrow.  I 
need  hardly  say  that  I  am  deeply  hurt  by  your  dis 
obedience.  I  leave  Naples  for  Florence  to-morrow 
night. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  137 


VII 

No  city  in  the  world,  Lilia  felt,  could  exceed  the 
dreariness  of  Naples  on  that  sordid  November  after 
noon.  A  sullen  smother  of  fog  rolled  in  from  the 
harbor;  it  was  ruthlessly  cold.  The  filth  of  the 
streets  was  trodden  to  a  thin  slime  that  reeked 
sourly;  even  in  her  closed  cab  the  air  seemed  in 
fected  ;  it  caught  at  her  throat.  Shivering,  she  hud 
dled  back  into  a  corner  of  the  cab,  drawing  her  fur 
coat  tightly  about  her.  And  a  sense  of  unreality  op 
pressed  her.  All  her  memories  of  Naples  were  of 
crying  color — an  immense,  shameless  tumult  and 
pageantry  of  primitive  sun-steeped  life.  Even  the 
smells  of  Naples  had  been  resonant,  brazen.  But 
this  soiled,  meagre  abode  of  furtive  ghosts — !  Lilia 
closed  her  eyes. 

After  all,  what  did  it  matter?  A  little  weariness, 
a  little  discomfort  more  or  less  on  a  difficult,  un 
friendly  planet — peopled,  for  the  most  part,  with 
creatures  as  tired  and  wretched  as  herself! 

And  where,  precisely,  was  she  going? 

Oh,  yes,  she  was  going  to  meet  her  father — and 
she  must  think.  She  must  really  begin  to  think  se 
riously  about  it — prepare  herself  for  that  interview, 
and  for  what  might  follow.  There  was  so  much  she 
must  manage  somehow  to  make  him  understand — 
so  much  she  must  somehow  bring  him  to  feel,  to  care 
about.  But  if,  in  her  present  mood,  it  all  went 
dream-like,  floated  away  from  her — !  If  she 
couldn't  now,  for  some  reason — or  wild  unreason — 


138  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

feel  it,  or  care  about  it  herself,  or  make  it — any  of 
it — seem  important,  or  merely  true ! 

The  cab  horse,  jerked  sharply  back  on  his  cruel 
bit,  came  to  a  sliding,  stumbling  stop,  and  Lilia  was 
thrown  a  little  forward  from  her  corner.  Thus  she 
opened  her  eyes  on  her  father's  face;  he  was  putting 
out  a  hand  to  steady  her — he  had  already  opened  the 
door  of  the  cab. 

"Well,  Lilia,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "you  haven't  been 
away  so  long  as  all  that.  Don't  you  even  know  me  ?" 

"I — I  must  have  dropped  off,"  she  stammered. 
Then  she  managed  a  smile.  "You're  looking  hand 
somer  than  ever,  father!" 

"Ah — ?  I  see  your  sense  of  humor  hasn't  de 
serted  you.  Or  perhaps  this  damned  fog  softens 
the  distressing  details.  Come  in,  my  dear.  It's 
quite  as  cold  in  my  rooms,  in  spite  of  the  chaufage 
central.  But  at  least  it's  appreciably  dryer — and 
I've  ordered  tea."  He  helped  Lilia  from  the  cab, 
with  that  slight  excess  of  manner  so  habitual  to  him, 
tucked  her  hand  into  his  arm,  and  so  led  her  across 
a  wide  strip  of  slippery  pavement  and  through  a 
great  outer  doorway  which  she  at  once  remembered. 
"Oh — this  is  where  you  and  I  stopped  the  last  time, 
father." 

"Yes.  You  are  more  comfortably  located,  I  hope. 
But  they  know  me  here — and  it  does  well  enough." 

That  Anson  Chenoworth  was  indeed  known  and 
duly  appreciated  by  the  management  was  evident  at 
once  as,  with  his  daughter  on  his  arm,  he  entered 
the  great  draughty  foyer  of  the  hotel.  The  con 
cierge  bowed  low  before  him;  the  manager  in  per 
son  stepped  forth  almost  anxiously  from  some  inner 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  139 

office  to  greet  him.  Anson  waved  them  indifferently 
away,  with  a  colloquial  Italian  phrase  or  two,  and 
proceeded — and  as  Lilia  walked  by  his  side  to  the 
lift  she  involuntarily  tightened  her  hold  on  his  arm, 
and  smiled,  and  the  oppressive  sense  of  unreality 
was  swept  from  her  brain  by  a  warm  uprush  of  af 
fectionate  recollection.  She  had  crossed  thus,  at  his 
side,  the  foyers  of  so  many  continental  hotels;  had 
observed,  so  many  times,  and  always  with  amuse 
ment,  his  manner — so  nice  a  blending  of  familiarity 
and  distance — toward  all  those  merely  accessory 
creatures  whose  sole  function  in  life  was  to  minister 
to  his  convenience.  And  his  private  suite,  of  course, 
would  be  the  most  comfortable  the  hotel  afforded.  It 
had  always  been  rather  like  being  the  daughter  of  a 
Crown  Prince,  being  the  only  daughter  of  her  father. 
And  suddenly,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  it  oc 
curred  to  her  to  wonder  how  her  father  was  able 
always  to  live  so  luxuriously.  She  knew  that  only 
one  play  from  his  pen  had  been  produced  during  the 
last  three  or  four  years,  and  that  play — "A  Virtu 
ous  Husband" — had  had  the  briefest  of  runs  in  New 
York,  where  even  the  critics  who  had  praised  its 
wit  and  distinction  had  felt  it  safer  to  deplore  its 
too  continental  cynicism,  its  wholly  un-American 
point  of  view.  How,  then,  did  her  father  keep  it 
up — everything?  Could  the  earlier  plays  have 
brought  him  so  lasting  a  fortune?  She  knew  little 
of  such  things,  but  supposed  it  possible.  And  she 
knew  that  whatever  he  had  he  had  won  for  himself, 
for  he  occasionally  mentioned — with  an  odd  mingling 
of  pride  and  distaste — his  poverty  as  a  boy.  An 
astonishing  man,  her  father!  He  would  tap  gently 


140  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

now  at  the  outer  door  of  his  suite.  Lilia  had  never 
known  him  to  burden  himself  with  a  latch-key.  Ah 
— she  was  not  to  be  disappointed !  He  was  already 
tapping  gently  on  a  panel  of  the  outer  door.  But 
Anatole  would  be  certain  to  hear  him — yes! 

Everything  as  it  should  be.  The  outer  door  of  the 
suite  was  opened  to  them  by  Anatole,  a  short,  stout, 
middle-aged  Frenchman — a  native  of  Normandy 
who  affected  sideburns  and  a  quaintly  British  air  of 
pompous  solemnity.  Anatole  had  been  Anson  Chen- 
oworth's  confidential  body-guard  for  at  least  fifteen 
years.  He  greeted  Lilia  with  respectful  warmth  but 
without  a  trace  of  effusion,  Anatole's  note  being  at 
all  times — as  Lilia  well  knew — correctness.  She 
thought  it  probable,  and  Anatole  was  himself  con 
vinced,  that  no  second  gentleman's  gentleman  now 
living  had  more  perfect  manners,  a  more  rigorous 
tenue.  And  so  faultlessly  restrained  was  his  bearing 
on  this  occasion  that  Lilia  began  to  doubt  whether 
she  had  ever  been  away  from  her  father — whether, 
indeed,  they  were  not  simply  returning  to  their  rooms 
from  a  brief  stroll  together. 

Tea — on  a  neatly  appointed  table — was  awaiting 
them  in  a  vast,  bleak  drawing-room  with  a  red-tiled 
floor  and  mustard-yellow  walls  frescoed  in  the  Pom- 
peian  tradition.  It  would  have  been  a  delightfully 
cool  apartment  for  a  midsummer  South  Italian  day, 
but  now  it  held  an  almost  mortal  chill  against  which 
one  small  hot-water  radiator  was  struggling  vainly. 
"I  advise  you  to  keep  on  your  wraps,  Lilia,"  said 
Anson  Chenoworth.  "For  the  present,  at  least — 
until  you  become  acclimated  to  the  tomb.  I  advise 
a  little  brandy  as  well.  Young  ladies  who  fall  asleep 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  141 

in  cabs  have  either  had  too  much  br»  ^y — or  too 
little.  You,  I  trust,  have  had  too  little. — There." 
He  poured  for  her,  talking  quietly  on  as  he  did  so — 
with  the  delicate  precision  of  phrase  that  was  all  his 
own.  "Bella  Napoli,  as  usual,  is  surpassing  herself. 
As  an  unfailing  provider  of  discomforts  she  is  a  city 
apart.  But  I  think  you  may  yield  to  that  padded 
chair  safely  enough;  the  fleas — for  the  moment — 
seem  to  be  hibernating." 

So  it  was  all  just  as  she  might  have  foreseen  it. 
Anatole  waited  on  them  decorously,  and  decorously 
withdrew.  Lilia  was  alone  now  with  her  father. 
The  critical  hour  she  had  dreaded  was  upon  her;  it 
was  truly  critical — and  lo,  she  was  drinking  tea !  Un 
expectedly  to  herself,  she  laughed  aloud.  "  'Deeply 
hurt  by  my  disobedience'  I"  she  exclaimed.  "Oh, 
father — really!  You  and  I  are  the  absurdest  couple 
in  the  world.  But  all  the  same — things  have  hap 
pened,  you  know." 

"I  know.  Disagreeable  things.  Hence  we  post 
pone  their  consideration  as  long  as  possible,  my  dear. 
It's  at  least  a  proof  that  we're  not — barbarians." 

He  was  trimly  built,  Anson  Chenoworth ;  well  be 
low  medium  height,  with  a  slender,  compact  frame, 
tiny  feet,  and  tiny  brown  restless  hands.  The  rest 
lessness  of  his  hands — which  was  never  a  matter  of 
wide  gesture,  but  of  rapid,  restricted  movement — 
was  the  more  noticeable  because  of  the  fixed  expres 
sion  of  his  small  black  eyes,  which  were  Chinese  in 
their  immobility.  The  smoothly  parted,  crow-black 
hair  added  again  an  Oriental  note;  but  there  was 
nothing  of  the  Orient  in  that  high,  straight  nose,  at 
least  a  size  too  large  for  the  rather  narrow  face. 


142  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

The  contour  of  the  cheeks  was  irregular,  the  left 
cheek  being  slightly  hollower  than  the  right.  As 
for  the  line  of  the  lips,  if  you  choose  to  fancy  such 
things,  it  was  perhaps  a  little  cruel.  .  .  .  Yet  the 
total  effect  of  the  man  was  distinguished,  and  not 
displeasing. 

It  was  a  face,  however,  that  had  always  puzzled 
Lilia,  for  she  could  never  find  in  it  certain  traits 
which  she  knew  her  father  to  possess — his  self-in 
dulgent  sensuousness,  for  one  thing;  and  that  other 
strain  of  weakness  in  him  which,  formerly,  had  often 
led  her  to  describe  him  as  "simply  the  most  senti 
mental  old  darling  in  the  world."  He  didn't  look  a 
sensuous  man  or  a  sentimental  man;  he  looked,  on 
the  contrary,  rather  firm-fibred,  mentally  and  phys 
ically — firm-fibred,  and  even  now  and  then,  thought 
Lilia,  implacably  hard.  In  past  days  she  had  caught 
a  gleam  once  or  twice  from  those  still,  Chinese  eyes 
— a  gleam  that  had  chilled  her.  And  now  once 
more  as  he  spoke  softly  to  her  above  his  tea-cup — 
"It's  at  least  a  proof  that  we're  not  barbarians" — 
she  was  comfortlessly  aware  of  that  gleam.  .  .  . 

"However,"  he  continued  softly,  "I  confess  to 
some  curiosity.  How  did  your  mother  find  you  at 
Alden?  I  last  heard  from  her  in  California.  And 
why — in  the  name  of  that  rare  female  virtue,  com 
mon  sense — have  you  brought  her  with  you?" 

"My  dear  father,"  Lilia  responded,  carefully  sup 
pressing  every  trace  of  the  nervous  agitation  which 
Anson  Chenoworth's  direct,  cool  questions  had  at 
once  awakened,  "I'll  answer  you  gladly, — but  it  will 
really  be  fairer  if  you'll  answer  me  a  question  first.' 
— Why  did  you  suddenly,  about  three  months  ago — 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  143 

without  any  warning  or  explanation,  stop  the  small 
allowance  you've  been  sending  mother  ever  since  she 
left  us?"  And  as  she  countered  her  father  thus, 
Lilia  was  instantly  set  free  from  the  nervous  agita 
tion  that  had  seized  her.  It  passed  with  a  breath; 
and,  again,  she  was  standing,  as  it  were,  outside  of 
herself,  contemplating  with  ecstasy  the  dramatic 
quality  of  the  immediate  situation — wholly  pos 
sessed  by  a  curious  rapt  elation  of  soul.  And  again, 
while  she  noted  a  slight  tightening  of  her  father's 
lips,  she  was,  for  a  passing  moment,  subject  to  her 
old  illusion;  again  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  eyes  of 
the  Universe  were  fastened  upon  her.  .  .  .  What 
a  scene!  What  a  magnificent  scene — to  play! 

"Yes.  You  are  right.  The  sooner  you  know  why 
I  did  that — the  better  for  all  of  us.  I  stopped  the 
allowance  because  I  could  no  longer  afford  to  pay  it." 

"But — !    How  was  mother  to  live?" 

"My  dear  child — don't  be  silly.  As  she  has  al 
ways  lived,  I  suppose — at  the  expense  of  some  un 
fortunate  victim." 

"But —  Your  agreement — ?" 

"There  is  no  agreement  between  us,  legal  or  oth 
erwise.  The  allowance — the  small  allowance,  as 
you  call  it — was  sent  to  your  mother  solely  because 
I  happen  to  be  a  foolishly  kind-hearted  man.  It  was 
never  intended  for  more  than  pin-money,  and  I 
doubt  if  it  even  paid  for  her  pins.  Your  mother, 
Lilia — you  must  surely  have  discovered  for  your 
self — is  an  impossible  woman.  When — for  excel 
lent  reasons — I  turned  her  out  of  my  house,  she  had 
no  claim  upon  me  of  any  kind.  None."  And  An- 
son  Chenoworth  sighed — impressively.  "It's  a  diffi- 


144  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

cult  thing  for  me  to  confess.  .  .  .  It's  a  painful 
thing  for  you  to  hear,  Lilia.  But — these  are  the 
penalties  life  brings  us.  The  wages  of  sin  are  not 
death — unhappily;  not  as  a  rule.  They  are  such 
moments  as  these.  If  you  could  feel  even  a  little  of 
what  it's  costing  me — !" 

"Father!"  Lilia  broke  in,  with  sharp  impatience. 
"I  know  what  you're  leading  up  to.  I  knew  the  very 
day  mother  cleared  out  that  she  wasn't  married  to 
you.  I  know  perfectly  what  I  am.  So  please  don't 
maunder  on  about  sin  and  penalties  and  sorrow  and 
all  that  rubbish.  I  mean — it  is  rubbish  now,  isn't 
it — coming  from  you?" 

"Why,  my  dear — ?     Why  —  especially  —  from 

"Because  you  don't  really  care !"  cried  Lilia. 
"Ah!     You  can  think  that!     How  mistaken  you 


are." 


Anson  Chenoworth  leaned  to  the  table  and  poured 
a  little  brandy  into  an  unused  liqueur  glass ;  then  he 
lifted  the  glass  and  held  it  an  inch  or  so  from  his 
nostrils,  delicately  inhaling  the  aroma  of  the  brandy, 
with  something  of  the  die-away  air  of  a  superfine 
lady  in  a  too-close  room  who  clings  precariously  to 
consciousness  by  sniffing  at  her  vinaigrette.  That 
her  father  had  moments  when  he  became  a  figure  of 
pure  comedy,  Lilia  had  long  suspected;  now  all  her 
suspicions  were  confirmed.  She  could  not  keep  a 
smile  from  her  lips — a  smile  that  instantly  destroyed 
the  moment  of  comedy  which  had  produced  it.  An 
son  Chenoworth  set  down  his  brandy  untasted,  and 
fixed  Lilia  with  a  gleam  of  unmistakable  malice.  But 
he  questioned  her  with  the  gentlest  gravity. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  145 

"My  poor  Lilia !  How  could  you  possibly  have 
discovered — these  unhappy  things?  You  were  a 
child." 

"Not  quite,  father;  and  I  wasn't  an  idiot.  I  knew 
something  dreadful  was  happening  between  you  and 
mother;  and  I  was  all  on  your  side.  You  see,  one 
feels  things.  I  knew  mother  cared  nothing  for  me 
— nothing!  I  wasn't  quite  sure  about  you.  But  at 
least  I  amused  you  sometimes ;  and  you  were  almost 
always  good-natured.  I  couldn't  help  hoping  a  lit 
tle  that  you  cared." 

"Haven't  I  proved  it  since,  my  dear?" 

"Yes,  in  a  way — your  way." 

"You  are  rather  hard  on  me,  I  think." 

"I  don't  want  to  be.  I  don't  mean  to  be.  I'm 
really  fond  of  you,  father.  That's  why  I  never  told 
you  what  I  learned — the  day  mother  vanished.  Tell 
ing  you  couldn't  change  things,  and  I  felt  it  would 
bother  you  too  much." 

"You  think  me  selfish,"  said  Anson  Chenoworth 
coldly.  "Well,  no  doubt  you  are  right.  Man  is  a 
selfish  animal.  And  woman.  Even  you,  my  dear, 
seem  to  have  felt  instinctively  on  which  side  your 
bread  was  buttered." 

"Father!" 

"I  know,  I  know — the  affections.  But  let  us  be 
realists,  too.  And  have  the  fairness  to  admit  that  it 
was  you,  not  I,  who  first  struck  that  note  and  set  the 
key  for  this  conversation!" 

Lilia  bent  her  head,  slowly — almost  humbly. 
"Yes;  you're  right,  father.  Pretending  won't  help 
us.  We  must  understand  each  other — all  through. 
From  the  beginning.  From  the  very  afternoon  when 


146  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

you  finally  rid  yourself  of  mother,  but  not  of  me." 
"Really,  Lilia!     Your  assumptions — !" 
"I  assume  nothing,  father.     You  must  have  won 
dered  what  on  earth  you  could  do  with  me.    But,  in 

the  end,  we  got  on  well  together " 

"Thanks  to  you — ?" 

"Yes;  chiefly — thanks  to  my  need  of  you — to  my 
instinct  for  the  buttered  side.  I  never  thought  of 
it  that  way  till  you  mentioned  it;  now  I  suppose  I 
always  shall. — But  you  won't  let  me  tell  you  about 
that  day,  and  I  must.  Teresa  the  cook  was  put  in 
charge  of  me;  she  took  me  for  a  long  walk  .  .  . 
well,  finally,  she  had  to  bring  me  home  again.  Ana- 
tole  was  waiting  for  us  down  by  the  gate.  He  said 
you  wanted  to  see  me,  and  I  must  act  properly  and 
not  make  a  fuss — because  you  were  very  much  upset. 
Then  he  and  Teresa  whispered  together,  and  then 
he  told  her  to  take  me  to  your  study  at  once.  The 
door  of  your  study  was  open,  so  Teresa  left  me  there 
and  went  to  find  you.  She  left  me  standing  right  by 
your  desk.  There  was  a  big  earthenware  jar  beside 
it — an  oil-jar — which  you  used  as  a  scrap-basket. 
You  had  thrown  a  lot  of  torn-up  letters  into  the  jar, 
but  some  of  the  pieces  had  missed  it  and  were  scat 
tered  on  the  floor.  I  thought  it  might  please  you  if 
I  gathered  them  up.  .  .  .  But  the  first  one  I  picked 
up  was  a  half-sheet  in  mother's  scrawly  writing,  and 
I  read  it.  I  knew  it  was  wrong  to  read  it,  but  I  did 
— and  then  I  heard  you  coming  and  crumpled  it  up 
in  my  hand  and  dropped  it  into  the  jar.  I'll  never 
forget  what  it  said,  though.  .  .  .  Don't  you  remem 
ber  how  I  suddenly  turned  sick  when  you  came  in — 
and  how  disgusted  you  were?" 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  147 

Yes;  it  was  evident  that  Anson  Chenoworth  re 
membered.  He  again  took  up  the  liqueur  glass  and 
sniffed  delicately,  but  this  time  carried  it  on  to  his 
lips  and  drained  it.  Not  until  he  had  put  the  empty 
glass  aside  did  he  respond  directly  to  Lilia. 

"Your  mother,  at  that  time,  was  in  the  habit  of 
sending  vulgar,  insolent  messages  to  me.  She  knew 
it  annoyed  me.  I  rarely  took  the  trouble  to  read 
them." 

"I  wish  I  could  forget  this  one — or  this  part  of 
one,"  said  Lilia.  "Every  word  of  it  still  hurts.  Of 
course,  I  didn't  take  it  all  in,  quite — just  at  first. 
But  gradually  I  did.  .  .  .  Oh!"  she  exclaimed, 
"I've  a  precious  inheritance,  father!  No  wonder  I 
cling  to  it!"  And  with  her  face  turned  a  little  from 
him  she  repeated  slowly:  "  'Do  you  ever  realize  how 
much  you  owe  me?  For  you  can't  deny  you  were  of 
your  head  about  me — for  years!  I  could  have  made 
you  do  anything — marry  me.  You  know  I  could. 
But  I'm  not  that  kind.  I  was  too  good  a  sport  to 
take  advantage.  I  never  even  suggested  it,  did  I — 
not  even  when  the  worst  happened  and  I  had  to  go 
through  with  it!  All  right,  just  bear  that  in 
mind — '  "  Every  line  of  Lilians  slender  young  body 
was  drooping  as  she  paused;  yet,  immediately,  with 
a  gallant,  defiant  shrug  of  head  and  shoulders,  she 
straightened  herself  and  faced  her  father.  "I'm  the 
worst,  you  see.  I'm  something  that  happened.  Do 
you  even  know  that  I  really  am — your  own  child?" 

It  was  as  if  a  strong  spring  had  suddenly  uncoiled 
beneath  Anson  Chenoworth,  almost  flinging  him 
from  his  chair  to  his  feet. 

"Good  God — !    This  is  horrible.    How  can  you 


148  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

say  these  things — ask  me  such  a  question !  Is  there 
no  limit  nowadays — no  restraint — no  sense  of  de 
cency  anywhere !  And  you  bring  that  woman  back 
with  you!  Why — why — why!" 

"Please  sit  down  again,  father.  It  is  horrible,  all 
of  it.  It's  a  good  deal  worse  than  you  know.  But 
I  wouldn't  go  in  for  being  shocked,  if  I  were  you. 
It's  a  little  late  for  that  sort  of  thing,  isn't  it?" 

Anson  Chenoworth  sank  back  into  his  chair  and 
stared  at  Lilia.  She  had  never  seen  him  so  com 
pletely  at  a  disadvantage.  She  began  to  pity  him. 

"I  know  I  seem  hard,  dearest.  .  .  .  I'm  not — 
I'm  not,  underneath.  Only,  we  must  get  everything 
said,  somehow — and  then.  .  .  .  Oh,  you  must  help 
me  a  little,  father!" 

"But  how  you  could  bring  that  woman — !" 

"I  had  to.  For  your  sake — and  hers — and  mine. 
She's  the  most  pitiful  wreck,  father  —  mental  and 
physical.  Morphine.  .  .  .  She's  half-mad,  I  think. 
Somebody  will  have  to  take  care  of  her." 

"Somebody— perhaps.     Not  I." 

"Yes,  father— you." 

"I  hardly  see  the  necessity." 

"You  will  see  it.  I  brought  her  with  me  chiefly  to 
protect  you — your  reputation.  You  stopped  her  allow 
ance  just  when  she  needed  it  most,  and  she'll  go  to 
any  length  now  to  injure  you  if  you  don't  protect 
yourself — treat  her  more  generously.  Please  believe 
me,  father — I'm  not  exaggerating.  She's  heart-break 
ing  in  her  present  state — but  she's  dangerous,  too. 
Nothing  reaches  her,  you  see.  It's  no  good  talking 
to  her.  She's  beyond  all  that.  If  she  wants  some- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  149 

thing  for  herself,  she  just  goes  for  it  blindly.  There's 
nothing  she  won't  say  or  do." 

"As,  for  example — ?"  Anson  Chenoworth  put 
his  question  softly,  with  a  slight  smile  which  did  not 
conceal  from  Lilia  the  fact  that  her  words  had  pain 
fully  impressed  him.  She  was  glad  to  have  impressed 
him,  and  she  supposed  his  question  merely  casual — 
a  device  to  gain  time  for  thought.  It  annoyed  her, 
however. 

"Good  heavens,  father!"  she  exclaimed.  "Surely, 
the  way  in  which  mother  forced  me  to  leave  Al- 
den— " 

"Ah !  but  that's  precisely  what  I  don't  understand! 
Why  did  you  leave  Alden?" 

"Why—?    Hasn't  Dr.  Harrod  written  you?" 

"Yes.  I  received  a  letter,  by  way  of  Paris,  almost 
a  week  ago — a  masterpiece  of  cautious  evasion. 
After  I  had  read  it,  I  knew  as  much  as  I  did  before — 
from  the  cablegrams.  Dr.  Harrod  expressed  every 
confidence  in  your  good  intentions  and  every  regret 
for  your  leaving — but  he  evidently  prefers  to  let  you 
tell  your  own  story." 

"Bless  him!"  cried  Lilia  warmly.  "He  and  Ruth 
are  the  best  friends  I  have  in  the  world.  Do  you 
realize,  father,  that  they  are  the  first  genuinely  good 
people  I've  ever  known?" 

"Thank  you,  my  dear." 

"Don't  be  angry  with  me.  It's  true — and  you 
know  it's  true.  You're  charming,  father,  and  you've 
always  been  kind  to  me — and  I  do  love  you!  But 
you're  not  — good.  It  would  bore  you  too  much." 

"Perhaps,"  smiled  Anson  Chenoworth.     "I  con- 


150  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

fess  I've  sometimes  thought  the  final  triumph  of 
virtue  will  end  in  a  universal  yawn." 

"Put  that  in  your  next  play,  father." 

"It  was  in  my  first  one,"  said  Anson  Chenoworth. 
"But  you  still  leave  me  in  the  dark — as  to  how  your 
mother  found  you — as  to  why  you  left  Alden — as  to 
why  you  are  both  here  in  Naples !  And  it  just  hap 
pens  to  be  extremely  important  for  me  to  know — at 


once." 


A  third  person  might  have  said  that  he  had  fully 
recovered  himself  now — his  habitual  manner,  his 
tone  of  cool  irony;  but  Lilia  was  not  deceived.  She 
was  aware  of  a  deeper  disquiet  in  him  than  she  had 
expected  to  find;  and  she  was  distinctly  aware  of 
something  new  an3,  as  she  feared,  definitely  hostile 
in  his  attitude  toward  herself.  .  .  .  She  made  haste 
to  answer  him. 

"It  was  just  a  chance,  mother's  finding  me.  I 
suppose  you  know  that  when  she  went  to  Los  An 
geles,  two  or  three  years  ago,  she  had  a  contract 
with  one  of  the  moving  picture  companies  out 
there?" 

"An  excuse.  She  was  living  with  one  of  their  di 
rectors.  So  I've  good  reason  to  believe,  at  least." 

"Ah — !"  Lilia  had  cried  out  her  protest.  Her 
cheeks  burned.  Her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Why, 
suddenly,  she  should  feel  vicarious  shame  for  this  un 
worthy  mother,  no  detail  of  whose  life,  after  all, 
could  prove  an  unexpected  revelation,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  explain.  But  a  deep-lying  instinct  in  her 
resented  the  chill  indifference  of  Anson  Chenoworth's 
statement.  One  might  hate,  or  be  sorry  for,  or  even 
merely  dislike — but  one  mustn't  simply  wipe  out  a 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  151 

human  being  who  had,  for  good  or  evil,  shared  any 
part  of  one's  life.  Dust  from  one's  shoes — ah, 
no !  one  mustn't  flick  flesh  and  blood  away  like  that ! 
Or  if  one  could  and  did — then  God  pity  all  who 
looked  to  such  a  man  for  any  touch  of  self-denying 
affection. 

An  irrelevant  thought  lifted,  for  an  instant,  a  cold, 
snake-like  head.  —  Dunster  Thorpe — ?  .  .  .  Had 
he  already  perhaps  wiped  her  out,  as  an  episode  it 
could  not  possibly  profit  him  even  to  remember? 
Was  he,  too — like  her  father — a  Man  with  a 
Sponge —  ? 

"Are  you  ill,  Lilia?"  queried  Anson  Chenoworth. 

"No.  But  dreadfully  tired — I'm  sorry.  .  .  . 
Los  Angeles — oh,  yes,  it  was  there  mother  got  word 
from  your  bankers  in  New  York.  You  had  stopped 
her  allowance.  She  was  ill  —  morphine  .  .  . 
couldn't  work — couldn't  ...  I  mean,  she  had  no 
other  resources.  She  wrote  you,  more  than  once — 
and  you  didn't  reply.  Then  she  sold  some  jewelry, 
and  came  on  to  New  York  to  see  your  bankers.  They 
could  give  her  no  satisfaction — and  I  suppose  it 
made  her  desperate.  She  must  have  haunted  the 
place  for  weeks.  .  .  .  Then,  one  day,  some  one  in 
the  office — some  clerk — happened  to  mention  my 
being  at  Alden  ..." 

"The  idiots!  I  had  given  positive  instruc 
tions — !" 

"Yes;  but  such  things  happen,  you  see.  People 
aren't  machines.  .  .  .  Well;  you  can  imagine  the 
rest." 

"Possibly.    But  I  prefer  to  be  told." 

"Of  course.     You  couldn't  imagine  it.     I'm  not 


152  LILIA   CHENO WORTH 

talking  quite  sensibly,  am  I — it's  ...  no  mat 
ter.  .  .  .  '  Lilia  drew  a  long,  slow  breath  and 
straightened  herself  in  her  chair.  "When  she 
reached  Alden,  mother  didn't  even  stop  to  look  me 
up.  She  went  direct  to  Dr.  Harrod — told  him  she 
had  never  been  married  to  you,  and  showed  him  an 
old  letter  of  yours  which " 

"Nonsense.  No  woman  would.  ...  I  tell  you, 
it's  incredible." 

"Isn't  it!  Isn't  it!  But  don't  imagine  that's  all. 
Mother  wasn't  content  with  that.  She — "  Lilia 
broke  off,  crushing  intertwined  fingers  together  in 
a  supreme  effort  to  master  the  nervous  crisis  which 
she  now,  with  a  secret  terror,  felt  to  be  gaining  upon 
her.  She  had  sensations  of  suffocation;  an  incessant 
shower  of  arrows — invisible  arrows  of  flame  and  ice 
— fell  upon  her;  her  heart  seemed  alternately  to 
stop  or  to  crowd  upward  into  her  throat  and  strug 
gle  there.  .  .  . 

But  when  she  was  able  to  speak  once  more,  she 
spoke  quietly.  "Mother  says  I'm  not  your  child. 
She  told  Dr.  Harrod  I'm  not  your  child.  .  .  .  May 
— may  I  lie  down  somewhere?  I  can't  .  .  .  it's 
silly  of  me  .  .  .  the  journey  .  .  .  mother's  been 
rather  difficult.  .  .  .  Please  put  your  arm  round  me 
— tighter.  .  .  .  Thanks  .  .  .  thank  you,  father  ..." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  153 


VIII 

Half  an  hour  later,  at  the  Hotel  Parthenope,  in 
the  sitting-room — smaller  but  more  pretentiously 
furnished  than  his  own — of  the  suite  he  had  himself 
engaged  for  Lilia,  Anson  Chenoworth  was  standing 
before  the  woman  who  still  from  time  to  time,  to  his 
extreme  annoyance,  called  herself  "Mrs.  Cheno 
worth."  Lilia,  poor  child,  he  had  left  to  rest  and 
recover  herself  in  his  own  darkened  bedroom,  prom 
ising  her  an  hour  of  undisturbed  quiet.  Following 
upon  her  crisis  of  nerves,  his  slightly  hostile  attitude 
had  changed  to  one  of  almost  tender  consideration; 
he  had  assured  Lilia  he  was  now  convinced  she  had 
done  a  wise  and  plucky  thing,  had  acted  throughout 
for  his  best  interests,  by  disobeying  him  and  bring 
ing  her  mother  along;  and,  with  his  own  hands,  he 
had  dissolved  a  bromide  tablet  in  a  glass  of  water. 
.  .  .  But  he  had  not  mentioned  to  Lilia  his  rapidly 
formed  plan  for  an  immediate  interview  with  her 
mother;  nor  did  he  even  mention  it  to  the  circum 
spect  Anatole.  "If  Miss  Lilia  should  ask  for  me, 
say  only  that  I've  stepped  out  for  a  few  moments; 
nothing  more.  And  use  every  means  of  persuasion 
to  keep  her  here  until  I  return." 

Now — "My  dear  Hattie,"  he  was  saying,  "I  beg 
you  to  follow  me  with  more  attention.  I  implore  you 
to  be  reasonable.  I  shall  be  frank  with  you.  I 
stopped  sending  you  money  because  I'm  simply 
drowned  in  debts — and  I  felt  my  sentimental  debt  to 
you  was  long  since  paid  and  overpaid.  But  I  hadn't 
the  least  idea  you  were  all-to-pieces  like  this.  You 


154  LILIA   CHENO WORTH 

see,  I  never  read  your  letters.  I  feared  they  might 
be  disagreeable,  so  I  tore  them  up  in  their  envelopes 
as  they  arrived.  Voila — /  You  couldn't  ask  a  more 
open  confession  than  that,  could  you  now?" 

Harriet  Gleeson,  to  restore  to  her  the  one  name 
she  never  used — her  own — was  lying  on  a  sofa,  with 
two  great  tumbled  pillows,  dragged  out  from  her 
bedroom,  supporting  her  head  and  shoulders.  Like 
the  frayed  and  soiled  negligee  she  was  wearing,  she 
showed  the  remains  of  what  must  once  have  been  a 
bold  and  vivid  type  of  beauty.  Her  hair,  a  blonde 
glory  bestowed  by  nature,  was  still  striking  in  color, 
yet  belied  itself;  it  had  taken  on  the  dry,  lifeless  tone 
of  hair  artificially  bleached  and  dyed.  The  face 
seemed  unnaturally  long  and  sharp-featured,  and  the 
hollows  of  the  cheeks  were  accented  rather  than 
disguised  by  smears  of  rouge.  A  ravaged  face, 
everywhere  betraying  the  skull  beneath  it.  But  what 
chiefly  struck  Anson  Chenoworth  as  he  studied  this 
woman,  who  had  once  exercised  so  powerful  a  spell, 
was  that  she  knew  he  was  observing  her,  noting  with 
distaste  how  completely  she  had  let  herself  go,  how 
finally  all  her  resources  for  charm  had  vanished,  and 
that  she  did  not  care.  Why,  the  woman  was  not  even 
physically  clean — her  finger-nails !  Yet  she  did  not 
care.  ...  It  was  now  nothing  to  her  that  she  knew 
he  must  be  remembering,  comparing. 

"How  could  you  be  hard-up?"  she  asked,  indif 
ferently.  Her  voice  in  the  old  days  had  been  lazy 
and  deep,  with  a  slight,  individual  roughness;  now 
it  was  higher-pitched,  with  a  latent  whine  in  it — but 
with  a  quality,  too,  almost  ventriloquial;  remote. 

Anson  Chenoworth  smiled;  his  bearing  took  on  a 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  155 

sort  of  jaunty  cheerfulness.  "Nothing  easier,  alas ! 
One  is  idle,  one's  receipts  fall  off,  one's  expenses  in 
crease.  Naturally,  speculation  suggests  itself — but 
one  has  no  flair,  no  luck.  So  one  borrows  right  and 
left,  and  presently — the  inevitable.  A  bad  turn  of 
the  market  .  .  ."  Anson  Chenoworth  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  "My  dear  Hattie,"  he  added,  "as  I  stand 
here  before  you  I  am  ruined.  Mais — je  me  garde 
une  'poire  pour  la  soif!" 

"You  would." 

"Yes.  I  am  used  to  living  in  a  certain  way  and 
have  no  intention,  at  my  age,  of  living  less  agree 
ably. — In  a  word,  I  am  about  to  be  married.  At 
least — I  hope  so."  And  he  crossed  the  room  for  a 
small  gilt  chair  which  he  carried  back  to  the  lower 
end  of  the  sofa  and  there  seated  himself.  "Did  you 
hear  me,  Hattie?" 

"Yes.    I  don't  feel  like  laughing." 

"Nor  I.  I  have  precisely  one  chance  in  the  world 
to  save  myself  from  bankruptcy  and  all  the  annoy 
ance  it  would  bring  me.  But  your  arrival  here  with 
Lilia  makes  the  whole  matter,  temporarily,  more 
difficult.  Unless — well,  unless  you  are  both  willing 
to  see  what  is  best  for  all  of  us.  You,  for  example, 
Hattie — I  take  it  you've  no  personal  objection  to  my 
settling  down  in  life,  so  long  as  I'm  willing  to  see 
you  through?" 

Hattie  Gleeson  hunched  herself  up  a  little  higher 
against  the  pillows. 

"What  difference  does  it  make  to  me !  Young  or 
old,  she  must  be  a  damn  fool — but  that's  your  busi 
ness.  I  don't  believe  you're  strapped,  anyway.  So 
you  fix  things  comfortably  for  me,  that's  all — and  I 


156  LILIA   CHENO WORTH 

won't  trouble  you  again.  I  want  my  freedom  back. 
I'm  sick  of  being  watched  and  managed.  I  won't 
be  sent  to  a  sanitarium,  either!" 

"Ah,  I  see.  All  you  ask  is  the  privilege  of  killing 
yourself  in  your  own  way." 

She  leaned  forward  eagerly  to  him  and  a  dull 
spark  came  into  her  dull  eyes.  "That's  it  Chen! 
You  fix  things  so's  I  can  clear  out  and  do  as  I  like." 

Anson  Chenoworth  drew  a  long  but  unobtrusive 
breath.  "Well — -why  not?  I  suppose  I  should  try 
to  persuade  you,  for  your  own  good,  to  put  yourself 
under  medical  restraint.  But  I  prefer  to  be  honest 
with  you.  I  don't  give  a  hang  what  becomes  of 
you,  my  dear — and  you  don't  give  a  hang  what  be 
comes  of  me.  We're  quits,  then.  You  need  money 
and  want  your  freedom;  I  need  money  and  want  to 
be  rid  of  you  once  for  all.  Eien!  Let's  arrange 
things  to  our  mutual  advantage,  and  be  done  with  it." 

"I'm  satisfied.    But  it's  not  so  easy  as  that." 

"Really?  So  long  as  you  are  so  charmingly  rea 
sonable,  Hattie,  I  fail  to  see  the  difficulty." 

"Don't  you! — How  about  Lilia?" 

"Ah—?    How  about  her—?" 

Hattie  Gleeson  slid  down  again  into  her  tumbled 
pillows.  "You're  supposed  to  have  brains,"  she 
muttered;  "but  if  you're  as  dumb  as  that,  you  wait 
and  see,  that's  all !  It  isn't  just  what  you  want — or 
I  want;  not  any  more.  Not  much  it  isn't.  You 
can't  handle  Lilia  that  way." 

Chenoworth's  face  perceptibly  darkened. 

"She  might  try  to  interfere,  you  mean — ?" 

"Lilia's  different  from  us,"  said  Hattie  Gleeson. 

"In  what  respect?" 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  157 

"I  don't  know,"  came  the  vague  response,  "but 
you  ought  to.  You've  had  her  with  you.  I'll  bet 
she's  got  your  number  all  down  in  a  little  book  some 
where.  But  that  isn't  it.  She's  different  .  .  ." 

"Very  illuminating,"  said  Anson  Chenoworth. 
Then,  after  a  slight  pause,  he  demanded  abruptly: 
"Is  she  really  my  child?" 

"You  know  she  is." 

"Yes;  I've  always  supposed  so.  But  Lilia  informs 
me  that  when  you  made  your  extraordinary  call  on 
Dr.  Harrod " 

Hattie  Gleeson  sat  straight  up  on  her  sofa  and 
shot  forth  a  lean,  menacing  arm.  "I  was  crazy  that 
night!  I  wanted  to  hurt  you,  I  thought  maybe 
Lilia  meant  something  to  you,  something  you'd 
fight  for  and  pay  through  the  nose  to  protect.  But 
it  worked  just  the  other  way.  You  mean  something 
to  Lilia — and  so  do  I.  She's  fighting  to  protect  us 
both — from  each  other.  That's  why  she's  different* 
if  you  want  to  know — and  you're  up  against  some 
thing  you  don't  understand  yet !  You  wait  and  see 
— that's  all.  I  warn  you." 

"My  dear  Hattie,  don't  excite  yourself  like  this 
.  .  .  you're  in  no  condition  .  .  .  it's  only  too  evi 
dent!"  The  woman's  lean  body  was  visibly  trem 
bling  from  head  to  foot  "As  for  Lilia — there's  of 
course  a  good  deal  in  what  you  say.  She  has  a — 
h'm — slightly  Utopian  side  to  her  character,  and  she 
can  be  curiously  stubborn  about  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  she  gets  that  from  me.  I'm  an  all-or-nothing 
person  myself — as  an  artist.  Only,  Lilia's  conscience 
seems  not  to  be  purely  artistic — which  is  always,  I 
think,  a  mistake.  However — !  I'm  very  fond  of 


158  LILIA   CHENO WORTH 

the  child;  I  admire  her  enormously.  She's  a  re 
markable  girl,  remarkably  sensitive — far  too  sen 
sitive  for  her  own  best  interests,  I  fear."  And, 
keeping  an  eye  on  the  nerve-shattered  woman  before 
him,  he  continued  tranquilly  with  his  analysis,  partly 
because  he  hoped  thus  to  prevent  another  outbreak, 
and  partly  because  the  exercise  of  this  faculty  at  any 
time  always  stimulated  him,  giving  him  that  illusion 
of  superiority  so  essential  to  an  ego-centric  nature. 

"What  I  mean  is,  that  Lilia  feels  her  way  through 
life.  She's  wholly  a  creature  of  instinct  and  intui 
tion — but  her  instincts  and  intuitions  have  an  ex 
traordinary  fineness;  she  has  even  more  than  once 
made  a  useful  suggestion  in  connection  with  some 
critical  scene  in  a  play.  In  short,  instinct  stands  to 
her  in  place  of  intelligence.  But  not  completely. 
Nothing  will  quite  replace  intelligence — the  analytic 
mind.  And  poor  Lilia  is  deficient  there.  In  order 
to  understand  a  given  case  she  is  forced  to  identify 
herself  with  it, — a  mistake !  To  live  one's  own  life 
one  must  be  able  to  detach  oneself.  .  .  .  Otherwise 
one's  sympathies  are  involved — one  lives  a  thousand 
conflicting  lives  and  gets  torn  to  pieces  among 
them " 

"Oh,  for  God's  sake  stop  it — stop  jabbering!  I 
know  you're  wrong." 

"Thank  you,  my  dear  Hattie.  At  any  rate,  I  am 
wrong  to  bore  you." 

"I  wasn't  listening.  .  .  .  But  see  here!  I  know 
you  can't  see  through  Lilia — any  more  than  I  can. 
She's  not  our  sort." 

Chenoworth   smiled.      "Oh,    come   now!      Since 


LILIA   CHENO WORTH  159 

when  have  you  and  I  belonged  to  one  species,  Hat- 
tie?'1 

"We  do,  all  the  same!  We're  natural-born  rot 
ters,  Chen — and  you  know  it." 

"Pardon  me.  I  absolutely  repudiate  the  descrip 
tion." 

"Well — suit  yourself.  Lilia's  not  my  sort,  any 
way.  She — she  scares  me.  .  .  .  She  gets  on  my 
nerves — !"  Harriet  Gleeson's  teeth  almost  chat 
tered  as  she  spoke;  the  trembling  of  her  body  and 
limbs  increased.  These  symptoms  were  not  lost  upon 
Anson  Chenoworth;  they  alarmed  him,  and  he 
promptly  got  to  his  feet. 

"Ah,  but  don't  let  it  worry  you  now,"  he  said, 
"we'll  arrange  things  differently.  I  haven't  the  least 
intention  of  leaving  you  to  Lilia's  mercies — or  vice 
versa.  I  think  you  can  safely  trust  everything  to 
me. — And  now  I  must  really  get  back.  Lilia  will  be 
wondering  what's  keeping  me."  He  took  up  his  hat 
and  coat,  not  without  a  deliberate  jauntiness.  "I 
shall  tell  her,  of  course,  that  I've  been  to  see  you — 
and  I'll  bring  her  home  to  you  myself,  early  this 
evening." 

"You  needn't.    It's  not  her  I  want." 

"Aren't  you  rather  mysterious,  Hattie — ?" 

The  woman's  gaunt  face  was  instantly  convulsed 
with  rage.  "Damn  her — !  She's  starving  me, 
Chen.  She's  killing  me,  I  tell  you.  She  knows  I 
can't  live  without  it — and  she  cuts  me  down.  She 
hides  it  when  I'm  asleep — locks  it  up.  She  won't 
give  me  a  cent  to  spend  myself.  She  don't  care  how 
much  I  suffer — she  hates  me,  anyway.  She  wants 
me  to  suffer — !"  Hattie  Gleeson  slipped  from  the 


160  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

sofa  and  seized  Anson  Chenoworth's  hands.  "You 
won't  let  me  suffer  like  this,  will  you,  Chen?  It's 
only  because  I'm  starved  for  it  that  I'm  all  shot  to 
pieces.  I'm  different  when  I'm  let  alone.  I  know 
what  I  can  take — why  shouldn't  I !  I  know  when 
I'm  feeling  right — !  .  .  .  Chen,  you'll  stand  up  for 
me  against  her — won't  you,  Chen !  I'll  go  crazy — 
I'm  half-crazy  sometimes  now.  I  haven't  the 
strength.  .  .  ."  Her  knees  bent  beneath  her  and 
she  fell  back  on  the  sofa  with  a  high-pitched  sob  and 
lay  there,  writhing  like  a  trodden  earth-worm,  her 
face  buried  in  the  pillows.  Chenoworth — thunder 
struck  by  this  unexpected  violence — stood  staring 
down  at  her,  helplessly.  In  truth,  he  was  badly 
frightened.  The  frenzy  had  burst  on  him  so  swiftly, 
without  even  a  faint,  warning  note ! — or  so  now  it 
seemed  to  him,  so  shaken  was  he  by  the  final  shock 
of  the  storm. 

Yes ;  Lilia  was  right — this  wrecked  creature  could 
be  dangerous.  Lilia  must  have  been  through  terrible 
scenes.  No  wonder  the  child  was  exhausted.  How 
had  she  been  able  to  go  on  with  it?  How  had  she 
dared — ?  Why,  his  own  knees  were  weak  beneath 
him!  His  tiny  brown  hands  fluttered  a  handker 
chief  about  as  if  he  were  signalling  his  distress.  It 
was  some  moments  before  he  quite  trusted  himself  to 
speak. 

"Hattie — ?  Ah — tiens,  tiens — (fest-ce  que  tu  as 
done!  It  won't  do — this  won't  do,  you  know.  No 
need  for  this  sort  of  thing.  I — I'll  fix  it  up  for  you, 
somehow!" 

And  with  his  words  Harriet  Gleeson  instantly  re 
laxed;  the  nervous  trembling  vanished  as  it  had 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  161 

come;  she  raised  herself  on  one  elbow  and  peered 
sidelong  at  Anson  Chenoworth.  Her  eyes  were 
eager — and  furtive. 

"Will  you,  Chen — ?  God  bless  you!  You  see 
how  it  is.  I  can't  stand  it  like  this.  You  see  how  it 
is,  don't  you,  Chen — ?" 

<(Yes.  I  see  how  it  is. — Come,  now,  you  make 
things  easier  for  me — and  I'll  make  things  easier 
for  you.  That's  a  fair  bargain,  I  think — ?n 

The  woman  nodded  her  head.  Her  feet  slid  from 
the  sofa  to  the  floor;  she  sat  up,  feebly.  "Lilia 
locked  her  trunk  before  she  went  out.  Maybe  you 
could  force  the  lock,  Chen — ?  I — I  want  to  be  feel 
ing  right  when  you  bring  Lilia  back — so  we  can  talk 
things  over.  You  understand,  Chen — ?  You  can 
trust  me ;  I  swear  you  can.  I  won't  take  more  than 
— just  enough  .  .  .  you  know !  Just  enough  to  pull 
me  together."  She  rose  from  the  sofa  and  faltered 
toward  him.  "Maybe  you  could  force  the  lock  for 
me,  Chen — ?  I — I  was  trying  when  you  came,  but 
I  can't.  .  .  .  My  hands  shake  so  when  I'm  like 
this. — What  do  you  say,  Chen — ?" 

Anson  Chenoworth  straightened  his  shoulders 
and  flicked  the  handkerchief  back  into  his  breast 
pocket.  "Why  not  ring  for  a  porter?"  he  sug 
gested.  "But,  after  all,  don't  bother.  I  must  start 
along.  I'll  send  a  porter  up  to  you,  Hattie.  You 
needn't  tip  him.  He'll  understand  .  .  ." 


162  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


IX 

Lilia  to  Ruth.    From  a  letter  begun  at  Naples,  con 
tinued  at  Settignano,  and  ended  in  Paris. 

.  .  .  7  must  leave  him,  Ruth — I  must  break  with 
him.  There's  no  other  way  for  me 

Well;  it's  done.  But  it's  such  a  long  story,  and 
so  wretched — all  through.  I  haven't  written  you\ 
for  weeks.  I  haven't  written  anyone.  For  a  while 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  couldn't — ever  again — write 
you  or  anyone  I  cared  for.  I  simply  wanted  to  drop 
out.  I'm  not  sure  that  isn't  what  I  want  most  even 
now.  I've  had  your  letters,  of  course — and  one  from 
your  father,  written  immediately  after  he  happened 
upon  that  newspaper  paragraph  announcing  mother's 
death.  Dr.  Thorpe  wrote  me,  too,  just  a  formal 
note  of  condolence.  I  imagine  you,  perhaps,  put  him 
up  to  it?  But  I'm  willing  to  think  he  meant  to  be 
kind. — Dr.  Harrod's  letter  was  wonderful. 

Your  letters,  Ruth 

No,  there  isn't  anything  I  can  say! 

Ruth,  I've  tried  for  three  days  to  go  on  with  this. 
Now  I'm  going  on — I  do  want  you  to  know  every 
thing,  but  just  you — not  even  your  father.  If  I  can 
get  it  all  said — make  myself  say  it,  somehow — you'll 
understand;  you'll  know  what  it's  right  to  tell  oth 
ers  and  what  is  only  for  you. 

After  all,  it  needn't  be  a  long  story.  It  would  only 
have  to  be  if  I  tried  to  explain  everything,  carry  you 
with  me  day  by  day.  That  would  be  cruel  to  you, 
and  besides  I  haven't  the  heart  for  it — and  it  would 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  163 

come  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end.  It  comes  to  just 
this,  anyway.  I'm  a  nuisance  to  father — if  he  is  my 
father;  I'm — "de  trop."  But  even  if  I  were  not  I 
couldn't  go  on  with  it,  couldn't  let  him  be  responsible 

for  me "Responsible!"  What  a  grotesque  word 

to  use  in  connection  with  father! 

It's  because  he  can't  or  won't  be  responsible  for 
anybody  who  may  prove  a  nuisance  to  him  that 
mother  is  dead.  That's  a  hideous  thing  to  say,  but 
it's  true.  Of  course,  I  can't  even  pretend  that  I'm 
really  sorry  mother  is  dead.  I've  tried  to  be.  I've 
tried  to  persuade  myself  that  I  was  just  beginning  to 
be  something  more  than  sorry  for  her;  but  I  can't. 
Oh,  Ruth — must  everything  that  is  true  be  hideous, 
simply  because  it's  true? — That's  a  rhetorical  ques 
tion,  dearest — don't  pay  any  attention  to  it.  Only, 
I  must  find  the  answer  to  it  some  day,  or  I  shan't 
know  how  to  live — how  one  ought  to  live — or 
whether  one  ought  to  live  at  all. 

Father  hasn't  any  doubts  about  that.  He  wants 
to  live,  and  he  wants  to  live  a  certain  way — and  he 
goes  for  it.  I  don't  believe  he  even  suspects  how 
ruthless  he  is;  in  fact,  I  know  he  doesn't.  But  peo 
ple  who  get  in  his  way — get  hurt.  I've  been  hurt, 
badly — more  fool  me,  perhaps.  And  mother's  dead. 
But  father  goes  sweeping  triumphantly  on!  He  mar 
ries  to-morrow  —  the  Contessa  Girlandoni  —  an 
American  countess,  a  widow,  and  perhaps  the  rich 
est  woman  in  Italy.  I  shall  not  be  at  the  wed 
ding 

And  there's  the  end  of  my  story  first.  I  wish  I 
could  forget  all  that  lies  between. 

The  very  day  I  reached  Naples,  during  my  first 


164  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

talks  with  father,  I  learned  things  I  had  never  even 
suspected.  For  one1  thing,  up  to  then,  I  had  always 
taken  father's  wealth — what  I  see  now  was  his  ex 
travagant  way  of  life — for  granted.  I  had  never 
known  anything  else  or  dreamed  of  any  possibility  of 
change — and  I  haven't  realized  yet — I'm  afraid  I 
haven't  wanted  to — that  for  me  now  there  must  be  a 
change,  so  complete  a  change  that  I'm  keeping  my 
eyes  tight  shut  till  the  moment  comes  when  I  must 
jump  and  land — well,  somewhere,  but  who  knows 
where!  I'll  get  back  to  that  later,  Ruth.  What  I'm 
trying  to  say  now  is  that  I  found  father  on  the  rocks , 
and  that  I  should  never  have  guessed  it — never  have 
seen  the  rocks  at  all — if  he  hadn't  pointed  them  out  to 
me.  He  was  living  as  he  had  always  lived.  Yet  he 
admitted  to  me,  almost  at  once,  that  he  was  bankrupt 
— smothered  in  debt.  He  admitted  it  with  a  smile. 
Explained,  quite  amusingly,  that  he  had  been  living 
for  some  years  far  beyond  his  means,  trying  to  re 
coup  by  speculation,  and  always  losing.  He'd  even 
for  a  while  been  so  desperately  pressed  as  to  try  out 
a  new  system  at  Monte  Carlo — with  what  I  suppose 
are  the  usual  results.  But  he  hadn't  the  least  inten 
tion  of  changing  his  habits,  economizing — and  he 
said  airily,  too,  that  he  doubted  whether  he  should 
ever  write  another  play.  There  was  no  public  left 
for  really  distinguished  work,  and  he'd  be  damned 
if  he'd  cater  to  shop-girls!  Well,  I  like  that  in  him 
— don't  you?  Father  is — as  he  is.  I've  found  him 
out,  and  can  never  quite  trust  him  or — what's  so 
much  lonelier  for  me — really  love  him  now,  as  I  used 
to,  simply  and  blindly ;  but  I  can  still  admire  the  art 
ist  in  him,  the  artist  who  has  never  made  anything 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  165 

he  didn't  want  to  make — who  has  never  sold  him- 
self  to  the  Philistines.  As  an  artist,  I  mean.  For 
he  has  sold  himself  as  a — oh — /  suppose  it's  ridicu 
lous  to  say  as  a  "human  soul"! 

Isn't  it  strange,  Ruth?  For  to  me  the  two  things 
seem  one.  How  can  he  be  fine  and  faithful  as  an 
artist  and  yet  stoop  to  unspeakable  things  as  a  man? 
I  don't  mean  mistakes  of  passion — but  meannesses, 
calculations —  How  could  a  woman,  Ruth,  bring  to 
life — create — any  truthfully  written  part  on  the 
stage,  stroke  after  perfect  stroke,  and  then  go  home 
to  cheat  her  dressmaker  or  be  faithless  as  a  friend? 
It's  done,  it's  done,  I  suppose,  every  day — but  how 
can  it  be  done!  Think  what  it  means  to  live 
through  another's  life — any  life,  ugly  or  beautiful. 
Take  mother — /  could  play  mother,  re-create  her, 
so  an  audience  would  know  her  inside  and  out,  and 
be  haunted  by  her.  I  could  feel  my  way  into  her  very 
skin.  I  know  I  could.  But  having  done  it  —  how 
could  I  help  wanting  to  live  beyond  all  that?  How, 
even,  could  I  ever  again  be  satisfied  with  myself  as 
I  am?  It  puzzles  me  so.  Life  and  art  are  one 
thing  for  me,  I  can't  separate  them.  I  never  could. 

But  father  can. 

The  Contessa  Girlandoni,  nee  Sibert,  was  born 
and  bred  in  Colorado.  She  isn't  thirty  yet,  and  she's 
been  a  widow  for  only  a  little  over  a  year.  She's  a 
fattish,  silly  woman,  with  great  moist  brown  eyes, 
just  like  a  Jersey  cow.  Papa  Sibert  died  when  she 
was  twenty  and  left  her  an  absurd  fortune,  which 
she  soon  bestowed  on  a  younger  son  of  a  great  Flor 
entine  family.  Italian  counts  are  supposed  to  be  a 
bad  lot,  but  this  one  seems  to  have  been  fairly  de- 


166  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

cent.  At  any  rate,  when  he  died,  the  Contessa  was 
inconsolable.  Everybody  in  Florence  laughed  about 
it.  I  remember  father's  telling  me,  with  a  shrug, 
that  she  had  sworn  never  to  marry  again — "Tout  a 
fait  comme  une  comtesse  de  Shakespeare!"  he  added, 
malignly.  She  had  already  retired  to  her  villa  in 
Settignano,  which  happens  to  adjoin  father's.  That 
was  nine  or  ten  months  before  I  left  with  Dr.  Har- 
rod  for  Alden.  But  I  hadn't  the  least  idea  that 
father  had  done  more  than  call  on  the  Contessa  once 
or  twice,  any  more  than  I  had  the  least  idea  he  was 
bankrupt.  Of  course,  I  did  feel  he  was  glad  to  be 
rid  of  me  for  a  while,  but  I  thought  it  was  because  he 
was  getting  himself  mixed  up  again  in  some  entirely 
different  kind  of  affair. 

Well  —  under  the  circumstances,  at  his  age  — 
heaven  knows  how  he  has  managed  this  one,  charm 
ing  as  he  is  able  to  be.  He  keeps  his  counsel,  and  I 
can't  even  imagine  how  he  proceeded.  He  has  done 
it,  though,  somehow,  in  the  face  of  the  most  fantas 
tic  difficulties.  For,  to  begin  with,  the  Countess  is 
very  devout,  in  a  worldly  way,  and  she  supposed  him 
— as  everybody  in  Florence  did — a  married  man 
separated  from  his  wife.  But  he  was  able  to  turn 
that  difficulty  into  a  triumph.  He  has  let  the  Con 
tessa,  herself  a  convert,  win  him  over  to  Catholicism, 
and  has  confessed  all  his  sins — of  which  I'm  the  big 
gest,  I  suppose  —  all,  that  is,  except  the  horrible 
hypocrisy  of  this  whole  wretched  farce.  But  he  made 
two  mistakes.  He  stopped  an  allowance  he  had  been 
sending  mother,  because  he  was  hard  pressed,  and 
because  he  thought  mother  safely  marooned  in  Cali 
fornia  and  otherwise  provided  for.  He  also  told  his 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  167 

dear  Countess  that  he  had  lost  all  track  of  mother, 
but  that  to  the  best  of  his  belief  she  was  dead.  That's 
why  he  was  so  agitated  when  I  suddenly  announced 
I  was  bringing  her  home  with  me  to  Settignano. 

Father  met  us  at  Naples.  Instead  of  backing  me 
up  in  my  forlorn  attempt  to  save  mother  by  getting 
her  into  a  sanatarium,  he  secretly  supplied  her  with 
money — calmly  denying  to  me  that  he  had  done  so — 
and  she  vanished.  She  vanished  two  days  after  we 
arrived — and  within  a  week  was  found  dead  in  her 
hotel  room  at  Monte  Carlo.  She  was  registered 
there  as  "Mme.  de  Fries"  but  the  police  found  an 
unopened  letter  from  father,  enclosing  a  check — and 
sent  for  him.  We  went  on  together  and  buried 
mother,  and  of  course  the  whole  thing  got  into  the 
Continental  papers.  Father  was  in  a  terrible  state 
of  mind.  He  was  certain  the  Contessa  would  break 
everything  of  and  so  finally  ruin  him.  He  had  been 
using  his  prospective  marriage  for  months  to  stave 
of  his  creditors. 

Ruth,  he  wanted  me  to  go  at  once  to  the  Contessa 
and  pretend  to  her  that  he  knew  nothing  of  my  plan 
— pretend  that  love  for  my  father  had  driven  me  to 
see  her,  explain  matters,  plead  for  him —  Oh,  you 
can  imagine  the  sickening  scene  he  urged  me  to  play! 

But  you  can't  imagine  his  violence  when  I  refused 
to  go. 

He  tried  to  threaten  me,  Ruth.  He  said  he  had 
always  treated  me  as  his  own  child,  although 

Ruth — Ruth — I  can't  write  it  down.  How  could 
he  think  he  could  buy  me 

/  had  to  stop  there,  Ruth — I  couldn't  go  on  with 


168  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

it,  even  to  you.  It's  more  than  a  week  since  I  broke 
off.  Father's  married.  His  dear  inconsolable  was 
more  infatuated  than  he  knew,  or  had  dared  to  hope. 
She  made  a  terrific  fuss  for  a  while,  but  at  last — oh, 
poor  woman,  if  she  is  a  fool! — she  "understood" 
and  forgave  him  everything.  So  father  lost  nothing 
by  losing  me. 

Well,  there  was  nothing  I  could  do  but  die  of 
shame — or  clear  out.  It  wasn't  a  difficult  choice, 
after  all.  .  .  . 


X 

It  was  the  week  between  Christmas  and  New 
Year's  Day,  and  Alden  was  deserted.  Ruth  Harrod 
had  gone  to  New  York  with  her  father,  who — faith 
ful  to  his  function  as  Publicity  Agent  for  Alden — 
had  accepted  two  invitations  to  speak  at  banquets  in 
that  metropolis  of  incessant  after-lunch  and  after- 
dinner  publicity.  They  were  stopping  at  the  Wal 
dorf,  because  one  of  Ruth's  married  sisters,  Mrs. 
Engel,  was  inevitably  stopping  there.  Once  Christ 
mas  was  safely  over,  Mrs.  Engel  always  came  on  by 
herself  from  Columbus  to  the  Waldorf  for  a  fort 
night  of  theatre-going  and  general  recuperation.  Mr. 
Engel  remained  at  home  to  keep  one  eye  on  his  hide 
and  leather  business,  and  t'other  eye  on  the  two  lit 
tle  Engels.  "Nothing  does  me  so  much  good,"  Mrs. 
Engel  would  say  from  time  to  time,  with  character 
istic  satisfaction,  "as  a  week  at  the  Waldorf.  The 
rooms  are  so  quiet,  and  I  meet  everybody  I've  ever 
known  downstairs.  I  never  go  in  or  out  that  I  don't 
meet  someone." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  169 

"And  you  find  that  restful,  my  dear?"  inquired 
Dr.  Harrod. 

"Indeed  I  do,  dad!  It's  so  friendly.  Why,  it's 
just  like  being  at  home." 

"Ah,  I  see.  Plus  qa  change,  plus  c'est  la  meme 
chose,'1  commented  Dr.  Harrod. 

"Are  you  making  fun  of  me  ?  I  suppose  you  are," 
said  Mrs.  Engel.  "But  I  don't  care.  There's  sim 
ply  nothing  does  me  so  much  good  as  a  week  at  the 
Waldorf!" 

"Emily's  Old  Home  Week,"  Ruth  sometimes 
called  it — but  never  to  Emily.  Not  because  she 
thought  it  would  hurt  Emily's  feelings,  for  she  knew 
her  impervious  to  satire;  but  because  it  would  fa 
tigue  her  to  hear  again  Emily's  formula,  "You  al 
ways  were  the  clever  one,  Ruth.  I  do  think  it  so 
fortunate  you  were  the  one  to  stay  on  with  clever 
old  dad!" 

On  the  morning  of  New  Year's  Eve  Ruth  and  her 
father  had  decided  to  dine  quietly  together  that  night 
and  to  retire  early.  The  prospective  Broadway  fes 
tivities  were  something,  they  both  felt,  to  flee  from 
rather  than  encounter.  Emily,  pursuing  her  rest- 
cure,  was  to  make  a  jolly  night  of  it  with  some  Ohio 
friends,  who  had  secured  the  "best"  table  at  an  ex 
pensive  restaurant  weeks  in  advance.  "Of  course, 
it's  foolish  to  spend  so  much,  just  to  see  a  lot  of  fast 
people  guzzling  champagne,"  admitted  Emily,  thus 
paying  her  faint  annual  tribute  to  the  Puritan  tra 
dition.  "But  everybody  does  it,  and  I  must  say  it's 
rather  fun  watching  the  crowd.  I  wish  you  and  Ruth 
would  come  with  us,  dad — just  for  once?"  There 
was  nothing  perfunctory  in  the  wish;  Emily  Engel 


170  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

was  devoted  to  Ruth  and  her  father.  But  Dr.  Har- 
rod  merely  laid  his  hand  a  moment  on  Emily's  shoul 
der  and  shook  his  head.  "My  dear  child,  I  can't 
enjoy  vicarious  intoxication.  If  I  could  afford  to  get 
drunk  myself — well  and  good !  But  as  a  Public  Pil 
lar,  the  least  I  can  do  is  to  be  rigid  and  unreeling. 
You  see  my  difficulty — ?" 

So  Ruth  and  her  father  dined  early  in  a  quiet  cor 
ner  and  talked  of  Lilia.  They  were  intensely  wor 
ried  about  Lilia.  Ruth  had  written  twice  a  week 
with  regularity,  but  for  a  number  of  weeks  now  had 
received  no  reply. 

After  dinner  they  retired  to  the  sitting-room  of 
the  little  suite  they  had  taken,  and  here  Ruth  found, 
among  other  letters  forwarded  from  Alden,  the  long 
letter  from  Lilia  which  has  just  been  given.  Ruth 
tore  it  open  and  began  reading  it  aloud  to  her  father; 
but  when  she  read  out  the  words,  "I  do  want  you  to 
know  everything,  but  just  you  —  not  even  your 
father,"  she  stopped,  and  met  Dr.  Harrod's  troubled 
eyes  with  a  look  which  was  at  once  a  question  and 
a  cry. 

"Tell  me  what  you  can  later,  dear,"  said  Dr. 
Harrod,  and  reached  for  his  own  letters,  opening 
them  methodically  and  giving  them — to  all  appear 
ance — his  concentrated  attention.  Nor  did  he  ques 
tion  Ruth  when  she  rose,  presently,  and  took  Lilia's 
letter  with  her  into  her  bedroom. 

But  when  she  had  closed  her  door  the  opened 
bond-advertisement  in  his  hand  was  thrown  aside, 
and  he  got  aimlessly  to  his  feet  and  drifted  about 
the  shining,  standardized  rectangle,  comfortless 
"comfort"  by  the  cubic  foot,  which  hotel  sitting- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  171 

rooms  invariably  and  perhaps  necessarily  are.  There 
were  three  large,  perfunctory  pictures  on  the  walls — 
washed-out  prints  of  the  Angelus,  of  Dido  in  Car 
thage,  and  of  a  mist-scape  by  Corot.  Dr.  Harrod 
paused  before  each  of  these,  his  hands  thrust  deep 
into  his  pockets,  his  head  a  little  on  one  side.  When 
he  turned  from  them  he  could  not  have  named  them. 
What  he  had  really  been  looking  at  was  the  Por 
trait  of  a  Young  Girl — by  an  Unknown  Artist. 

The  torn  envelope  of  Lilia's  letter  was  lying  on 
the  floor  by  Ruth's  chair.  Dr.  Harrod  picked  it  up. 
A  French  stamp — it  was  post-marked  "Paris."  He 
studied  that  envelope  with  a  frowning  attention  al 
most  idiotic.  Finally,  he  smoothed  it  out  and  slipped 
it  into  his  pocket.  He  did  not  know  why. 

The  telephone  rang.  It  rang  thrice  before  it 
received  his  attention.  Dr.  Thorpe  was  calling — 
Dr.  Dunster  Thorpe. 

As  Ruth  came  from  her  room  she  saw  her  father 
at  the  telephone  and  heard  him  saying,  uPlease  ask 
Dr.  Thorpe  to  excuse  us  this  evening.  Please  tell 
him  Miss  Lilia  and  I  are  both  very  tired  after  a 
rather  hard  week  and  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  father!"  she  interrupted  him,  "If  you  don't 
very  much  mind,  I  should  like  to  see  Dr.  Thorpe." 

"Oh — !  I  thought.  .  .  .  One  moment,  please!" 
he  then  called  into  the  receiver.  "I've  changed  my 
mind.  Kindly  ask  Dr.  Thorpe  to  step  up." 

Ruth  never  told  her  father  that  he  had  called  her 
Lilia  and  had  been  unaware  of  his  mistake.  Some 
how  she  felt  it  might  annoy  him. 

"I'm  sorry,  father,"  she  explained.  "I  know 
this  is  a  nuisance  to  you.  I  know  you  don't  like 


172  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Dunster  Thorpe;  but  I  do — the  more  I  see  of  him. 
I've  seen  a  good  deal  of  him  since  Lilia  wrote  and 
asked  me  to.  And  Lilians  in  real  trouble  this  time. 
She's  broken  with  her  father — finally.  Yes — for  a 
good  reason.  I'll  tell  you  what  I  can  when  Dr. 
Thorpe  comes. " 

Dr.  Harrod's  love  for  Ruth  was  unchangeable; 
yet,  deep  in  his  heart,  he  never  quite  forgave  her 
for  waiting  now  to  tell  him  more  of  Lilia's  trouble 
until  Dr.  Thorpe  was  with  them.  Ruth  felt  her 
father's  sudden  constraint;  it  pained  her;  but  she 
could  not  regret  her  decision. 

Dr.  Thorpe's  reaction  to  her  present  news  would 
tell  her  much — much  that  it  was  necessary  for  her 
to  know.  For  Lilia's  sake — yes;  but  perhaps  a  little 
for  her  own  sake  as  well.  That  Lilia  loved  Dunster 
Thorpe  she  could  not  doubt;  there  were,  in  Lilia's 
letters,  points  of  transparency  where  the  full  light 
broke  through.  As  for  herself — well,  Ruth  was 
not  in  the  habit  of  telling  herself  lies.  At  Lilia's 
request,  she  had,  as  she  had  just  reminded  her 
father,  "seen  a  good  deal"  of  Dr.  Thorpe  these 
past  weeks — more,  much  more,  than  she  had  meant 
to  see  of  him.  Dr.  Thorpe  had,  seemingly,  been 
grateful  for  an  unexpected  attention,  which  in  itself 
did  so  much  to  quash  certain  disagreeable  rumors 
that  he  had  fallen  into  the  bad  graces  of  the  Pres 
ident.  He  had  quickly  availed  himself  of  the 
proffered  opportunity  to  know  "poor  little  Miss 
Harrod"  better,  and — to  do  him  justice — he  had 
soon  recognized  the  distinction  and  delicacy  of  her 
nature,  and  had  blamed  himself  for  not  having 
earlier  discerned  in  Ruth  Harrod  a  possible  and 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  173 

valuable  friend.v  Dunster's  friendship  for  Ruth, 
when  once  awakened,  was  genuine  and  lasting, 
yet  Ruth  uncomfortably  suspected  that  a  grain  or 
so  of  calculation  had  somewhat  marred  its  begin 
nings.  She  saw  through  Dunster  rather  easily.  She 
saw  through  him  —  yet  she  liked  him.  Perhaps, 
even,  she  something  more  than  liked  him.  She  hoped 
not;  but  always  now  in  his  presence  she  was  aware 
of  a  deeper  perturbation  than  she  had  ever  before 
experienced.  She  was  almost  frighteningly  aware  of 
it  as  Dunster  knocked  at  the  door,  then  entered  to 
greet  them. 

It  was  at  once  evident  to  Ruth  that  Dunster  had 
been  finding  his  vacation  in  New  York  not  only 
agreeable  but  highly  encouraging,  so  far  as  his 
future  plans  were  concerned.  Arthur  Carswick,  his 
Harvard  friend  on  The  New  Age,  had  left  for 
him  four  or  five  skillful  letters  of  introduction  which 
had  pleasantly  placed  him  in  contact  with  persons  of 
more  or  less  importance  in  the  publishing  and  the 
atrical  worlds.  He  had  been  lunching  and  dining 
with  the  very  people  he  most  wanted  to  know,  the 
very  people  who  might  soon  be  of  use  to  him.  He 
was  full  of  his  experiences  and  eager  to  talk  about 
them,  and  it  was  some  moments  before  he  began  to 
feel  that  Ruth  and  Dr.  Harrod  were  giving  him  a 
merely  forced  attention.  The  discovery,  for  it  came 
as  a  discovery,  annoyed  him.  He  had  supposed 
Ruth,  at  least,  would  be  interested  to  hear  of  his 
first  adventures — or,  rather,  of  his  first  steps,  bold 
yet  wary,  toward  all  he  was  determined  should  prove 
the  Great  Adventure  of  his  life.  But  he  was  now 


174  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

chillingly  aware  that  his  enthusiastic  recital  was 
somehow  falling  into  a  void,  and  he  faltered — 
flushing  in  spite  of  himself — and  rather  lamely  broke 
it  off. 

"I'm  boring  Dr.  Harrod,  I'm  afraid — talking 
of  myself  like  this.  It's  only  that  it's  all  so  new  to 
me — and  yet  I  feel  so  at  home  in  it,  too.  I  see  it's 
what  I've  always  wanted.  .  .  ."  And  he  turned  to 
Dr.  Harrod.  "But  of  course,  sir,  I  should  have 
realized  that  people  like  Stevens  and  Isidore  Fuld 
are  of  no  particular  interest  to  you." 

"On  the  contrary,  Thorpe.  But  it  happens 
you  find  us  somewhat  worried — greatly  so,  in  fact. 
Ruth  has  just  had  a  letter  from  Lilia." 

"Oh—" 

Dunster  knew  this  response  inadequate,  but  he 
was  powerless  to  expand  it.  He  avoided  Ruth's 
eyes.  Ruth,  however,  was  prompt  to  help  him  and 
cover  his  confusion. 

"I  had  hardly  read  the  letter  through  when  you 
sent  up  your  name.  Father's  still  in  the  dark.  He 
only  knows  Lilia  has  broken  with  her  father.  We 
were  waiting  till  you  came  up " 

"Good  heavens!"  Dunster  exclaimed,  "Why 
didn't  you  shut  me  off  sooner!  I  apologize — " 

"Nonsense.  How  could  you  know?  Father  and 
I  apologize,  don't  we,  father?" 

"You  haven't  heard  from  her,  Thorpe?"  asked 
Dr.  Harrod. 

Dunster  shook  his  head.  "Lilia  hasn't  written 
me  since  she  left.  Not  a  line.  I've  written — several 
times."  He  paused  a  moment,  then  nerved  himself 
to  add,  "That  day  in  your  office,  sir — I  suppose  it 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  175 

finished  things  for  Lilia,  so  far  as  I'm  concerned." 

"But  it  didn't,"  said  Ruth,  quietly. 

Dr.  Harrod  was  puzzled.  Was  Dunster  Thorpe 
in  love  with  Lilia  or  was  he  not?  On  the  whole 
he  thought  not,  yet  he  was  far  from  certain.  "I've 
no  wish  to  pry  into  the  matter,"  he  said  and  darkly 
dismissed  it.  "Why  has  Lilia  left  her  home,  Ruth?" 

Ruth  took  time  to  reflect.  Wishing  to  soften  her 
father's  undoubted  snub,  she  addressed  herself  to 
Dunster.  "Lilia  said  I  would  know  what  to  tell 
you  —  and  what  I  mustn't.  It's  —  difficult  .  .  . 
Well,"  she  continued  presently,  "it  comes  to  this: 
Lilia's  found  Mr.  Chenoworth  out.  She  knows 
him  now  for  what  he  is — a  ruthless  egotist.  She 
feels  he  cares  nothing  for  her,  and  she  doesn't  re 
spect  him.  Can't.  He  tried  to  induce  her  to  do 
something  for  him — well,  something  she  couldn't 
do.  So  she  had  to  leave  him — being  Lilia.  I — I'm 
not  sure  there's  anything  more  I  ought  to  say." 

"May  I  ask  this,  Ruth?"  suggested  Dr.  Harrod. 
"Was  Lilia's  break  with  her  father  connected  in 
any  way  with  his  recent — um — somewhat  sensational 
marriage?" 

"Yes;  with  that — and,  in  a  sense,  with  her  moth 
er's  death.  Lilia  feels  Mr.  Chenoworth  did  nothing 
to  help  her  protect  her  mother  from  herself.  That's 
as  far  as  I  can  go — perhaps  I've  already  gone  too 
far.  But  the  important  thing  is,  Lilia's  done  the 
only  thing  possible  for  her — under  all  the  circum 
stances." 

"I'm  sure  of  that,"  said  Dr.  Harrod. 

"Yes,"  said  Dunster,  with  quiet  conviction.  "She 
would." 


176  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Ruth  kindled  to  his  sincerity.  "Isn't  it  magnifi 
cent — how  we  believe  in  Lilia!  How  one  must — 
instinctively!" 

"It's  because  she's  always  —  so  instinctively  — 
right"  Dunster,  with  the  words,  had  lost  all  self- 
consciousness,  and  it  was  part  of  the  wonder  of  it 
that  he  was  entirely  unaware  of  a  change.  He  got 
to  his  feet  and  walked  slowly  about  the  room,  with 
bent  head;  and  for  perhaps  the  first  time  in  many 
years  he  was  not  immediately  thinking  of  himself. 
"Dr.  Harrod,"  he  continued,  "do  you  remember 
when  I  first  went  to  you  and  complained  of  her? 
Funny  it  should  come  back  to  me — that  she  was 
right  that  time,  too.  We  were  reading  Julius 
Caesar  and  I  asked  her  to  start  the  recitation.  I'd 
never  called  on  her  before — and  I  asked  her  to 
begin  reading  on  from  where  the  previous  recitation 
had  left  off.  It's  a  small  matter,  of  course — but  so 
like  her.  You  see,  we'd  left  off  in  the  middle  of  an 
important  scene,  and  Lilia  simply  excused  herself — 
asked  me  to  call  on  someone  else.  I  remember  just 
what  she  said.  'I  can't  jump  into  the  middle  of  a 
scene  like  that  and  do  it  justice — I  can't  really!  I 
don't  believe  anybody  can' — Well,  of  course,  no  one 
could  who  was  honestly  able  to  appreciate  the  scene 
— feel  it,  as  actors  say!  It  was  just  stupid  routine 
teaching  on  my  part.  I  had  no  business  to  be  angry 
with  her."  He  stopped  before  Ruth  and  laughed 
shortly.  "Lilia  left  the  room,  you  know — made  no 
fuss  about  it — just  got  up  quietly  and  walked  out. 
Wasn't  it  splendid  of  her!" 

"Splendid!"  echoed  Ruth,  with  a  warmly  approv- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  177 

ing  smile.  "And  that's  precisely  what  she's  done 
now,  you  see." 

"Yes. — It's  what  she  did  when  she  threw  me 
over,"  added  Dunster — merely  as  one  states  an 
obvious  fact,  without  special  emphasis.  "Dr.  Har- 
rod  will  tell  you  how  right  she  was  then." 

"My  dear  Thorpe — !" 

"Well,  she  was,  sir  I  Lilia's  the  real  thing.  I 
thought  I  was.  I'm  not.  I'm  a  pretty  cheap  sort 
of  imitation.  Most  people  are,  beside  Lilia."  He 
turned  suddenly  to  Ruth.  "Where  is  she  now?"  he 
demanded.  "Is  there  anything  we  can  do — ?" 

"Ah!  That's  the  point,  Ruth!"  exclaimed  Dr. 
Harrod.  "That's  what  I'm  waiting  for!  Never 
mind  the  past.  What  is  Lilia's  situation  now? 
What's  she  up  to?" 

"She  doesn't  say,  father.  The  letter  comes  from 
Paris — without  explanations — and  without  an  ad 
dress." 

"Good  heavens !"  The  President  of  Alden  leaped 
to  his  feet.  His  agitation  was  almost  painfully  ap 
parent.  "I  shall  cable  her  father  at  once — for  full 
information. — That  child!" 

He  seized  his  hat,  without  further  words,  and 
hurriedly  left  the  room. 


178  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


XI 

"Won't  you  please  sit  down,  Dr.  Thorpe?  I  can't 
talk  to  you  comfortably — or  sensibly — while  you're 
wandering  about." 

Dunster  answered  her  smile.  "Forgive  me,"  he 
said,  and  drew  up  a  chair  beside  her.  "And  won't 
you  please  not  call  me  'Dr.  Thorpe' !" 

"I'll  try  not  to — if  you'll  meet  me  half-way?" 

"More  than  that,  Ruth!  I  wish  I  could  even 
begin  to  tell  you  how  grateful  I  am  to  you — for 
making  friends.  You  might  so  easily  have — well, 
distrusted  me — as  Dr.  Harrod  does.  .  .  .  He  has 
reason  to,  of  course,"  added  Dunster. 

"Yes,"  Ruth  quietly  admitted,  "he  has  some  rea 
son  to.  You  are  a  strange  person,  Dunster  Thorpe. 
You  begin  everything  badly — and  improve  as  you 
go  on.  You  began  badly  with  Lilia." 

"Ended  badly.  There's  nothing  right  about  me, 
so  far  as  Lilia's  concerned." 

After  a  momentary  pause — "That  depends,"  said 
Ruth.  "May  I  be  horrid  to  you?" 

"Please." 

"What  are  you  wanting  most  from  life — this 
instant,  I  mean?" 

"Wanting  most — ?" 

"Oh,  don't  be  on  your  guard!  I'm  not  trying  to 
trap  you.  If  you'll  answer  the  question  honestly  to 
yourself,  you  needn't  answer  it  to  me." 

There  was  an  edge  of  impatience  in  her  voice  and 
Dunster  winced  beneath  it. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  179 

"You're  right.  It's  a  question  I  must  learn  to 
answer  somehow — honestly.  I  could  have — before 
I  met  Lilia.  I  wanted  to  be  famous.  I  wanted 
money — lots  of  it — so  I  could  do  as  I  pleased." 

"But  now—  ?" 

Dunster  got  up  again  and  took  a  long,  frowning 
turn  about  the  room.  Ruth's  eyes  followed  him, 
anxiously.  Was  he  having  it  out  with  himself — or 
was  he  merely  hunting  a  loophole?  It  was  char 
acteristic  of  all  she  most  feared  for  him  that  he  might 
be  doing  just  that. 

"Ruth,"  he  said  presently,  "I  can't  answer  you 
honestly;  not  yet.  You  see,  I  want  to  believe  in 
myself;  I  want  you  to  think  well  of  me.  Those  are 
the  things  I'm  wanting  most  just  now  as  I  try  to  an 
swer  you.  They  cloud  the  whole  issue.  Of  course, 
what  I'd  like  to  say  is — I  want  above  everything  to 
become  worthy  of  Lilia.  Something  fine  and  noble 
and  romantic  like  that.  .  .  .  Not  that  I  think  I 
could  fool  you!"  he  went  on,  hastily.  "At  any  rate, 
I  shan't  try.  I  still  want  to  be  famous — to  count 
down  here  in  this  world  I'm  just  getting  the  feel  of. 
I  still  want  money — lots  of  it.  When  I  see  myself 
at  forty — and  I'm  always  at  it — I  see  myself  rich 
and  celebrated;  a  brilliant  success.  I  can't  help  it. 
It's  born  in  me  to  want  all  that,  whether  I  ever  get 
it  or  not.  I  couldn't  count  the  world  well  lost  for 
Lilia — or  any  woman.  I  couldn't  do  it.  I  suppose 
that's  somewhere  near  the  disgusting  truth  about 


me." 


"But  you  do  want  Lilia?     She's  mixed  in  with  it 
all—?" 

"Sometimes  I  wish  to  God  I'd  never  seen  her!" 


180  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

he  broke  out.  "It's  all  more  difficult  now.  She's 
changed  things." 

"Ah! — If  it  isn't  what  she  would  call  success — it 
won't  count!  Is  that  it?"  demanded  Ruth. 

"Perhaps.  It's  hard  to  say.  ...  But  it's  a  ter 
rible  thing  to  feel  humiliated — as  I  do.  Deep  inside. 
I've  hated  her  at  times — for  all  that." 

"Humiliated!"  flashed  Ruth.  "But  when  you  see 
yourself  at  forty,  isn't  Lilia  on  her  knees  too — with 
the  other  worshipers?" 

It  was  like  a  physical  wound  to  him;  he  cried  out 
against  the  pain  of  it. 

"How  could  you  know!  .  .  .  Yes,  I'm  still  like 
that,  now  and  then.  I  revel  in  it.  But  I  can  be 
ashamed  as  well — I  am  now.  Please  try  to  believe 
that  much  good  of  me." 

"I  believe  much  more,"  said  Ruth,  and  quietly  put 
out  her  hand  to  him.  "Dunster  Thorpe — for  your 
own  sake  —  why  don't  you  drop  everything  that 
doesn't  matter  ?  .  .  .  Why  don't  you  go  over  to  her 
i — at  once,  I  mean — and  bring  her  home?" 


XII 

When  Dr.  Harrod,  after  a  prolonged  absence, 
returned  to  the  sitting-room,  he  found  Ruth  and 
Dunster  still  in  earnest  conversation,  which  he  did 
not  scruple  at  once  to  interrupt.  "Ruth,"  he  ex 
claimed,  "a  most  singular  and  fortunate  thing  has 
happened!  Just  as  I  stepped  from  the  elevator  I 
ran  into  Betty  Oilman's  brother — yes — precisely — 
young  Dr.  Oilman  who  was  so  helpful  at  the  time 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  181 

— yes.  .  .  .  He's  on  the  staff  of  the  Rockefeller 
Institute,  you  know.  Didn't  you  know — ?  I  under 
stand  he's  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  of  their  younger 
investigators — he's  specializing  on  cancer — means  to 
devote  his  life  to  it.  Not  practising,  Thorpe — pure 
science.  It  seems  he  and  Betty  are  orphans  and 
have  some  property  of  their  own.  I  was  very  glad 
to  see  him  again — very  glad  indeed.  He  impressed 
me  most  favorably  at  Alden." 

Dr.  Oilman,  it  presently  appeared,  had  been  din 
ing  at  the  Waldorf  with  Henri  Mockel,  the  world- 
famous  French  embryologist,  who,  after  a  year  spent 
at  the  Rockefeller  Institute,  was  just  on  the  point 
of  returning  to  Paris.  Dr.  Gilman  was  going  over 
with  him  for  a  few  months  to  collaborate  with  the 
great  man  on  certain  abstruse  investigations  (the  ul 
timate  factors  in  cellular  growth  were  in  question) 
which  might — or  might  not — eventually  prove  of 
the  highest  value  to  the  human  race. 

"The  moment  I  learned  that,"  beamed  Dr.  Har- 
rod,  "I  felt  how  almost  providential  this  meeting 
with  Dr.  Gilman  might  prove.  He  sails  in  four  or 
five  days.  By  that  time  I  shall  have  an  answer  to 
my  cable — which  will  at  least  give  us  Lilia's  address. 
I  think  we  can  count  on  Chenoworth  for  that  much. 
Then  Dr.  Gilman  can  see  Lilia  in  Paris  and  discover 
just  what  her  situation  is.  And  he's  the  very  man 
for  a  mission  of  that  kind;  one  trusts  him  instinc 
tively!  .  .  .  I've  asked  him  to  lunch  with  us  to 
morrow,  Ruth." 

To  Dr.  Harrod's  surprise  his  announcement  did 
not  produce  on  Ruth  quite  the  joyous  effect  he  had 
expected. 


182  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"It  will  be  nice  to  see  Dr.  Gilman  again,"  she 
said;  "but  Providence,  as  usual,  seems  to  be  mud 
dling  things  a  little.'7 

Dr.  Harrod  was  too  immediately  astonished  to 
reply. 

"You  see,  father,"  Ruth  continued,  "I've  just 
persuaded  Dr.  Thorpe  that  he  owes  it  to  Lilia — 
and  to  himself — to  drop  everything  and  go  to  her. 
So  we  have  a  surplus  of  messengers." 

Dunster  had  risen  when  Dr.  Harrod  returned 
and  had  since  stood  a  little  apart  from  him,  listening 
without  comment  to  his  enthusiastic  narration.  Now, 
however,  he  joined  Ruth  and  her  father  and  met  Dr. 
Harrod's  eyes  squarely. 

"I'm  going,  sir,  just  as  soon  as  I  can  get  off.  I'm 
sorry  to  leave  you  in  the  lurch  for  the  next  half- 
year,  but  even  if  my  courses  have  to  be  dropped  I 
suppose  the  sun  will  go  on  rising  and  setting.  Per 
haps  I  can  even  make  the  same  boat  as  Dr.  Gilman." 

"But  my  dear  fellow !  As  things  have  turned  out, 
I  hardly  see  the  necessity — " 

"Then  you're  very  blind,  father.  Dr.  Thorpe 
hopes  to  bring  Lilia  back  with  him — as  his  wife." 

"Do  you,  Thorpe — ?" 

"No,  sir.     I  more  than  hope  to.    I  mean  to." 

Dr.  Harrod  frowned.  "I  should  like  your  deter 
mination  better,  my  boy,  if  it  had  not  needed  Ruth 
to  bring  you  to  it." 

"So  should  I,  sir." 

"Ah! — that  took  courage.  If  you  can  feel  that, 
Thorpe,  then  I've  been  unjust  to  you." 

"You  are  unjust  to  him,"  said  Ruth. 

Dunster,  to  his  own  astonishment,  laughed  out  his 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  183 

protest.  "Nonsense!  In  the  main,  Dr.  Harrod's 
quite  right  about  me.  ...  The  only  place  you  go 
wrong,  sir,"  he  added,  "is  in  doubting  my  love  for 
Lilia.  If  you'll  believe  in  that — well,  perhaps  you'll 
learn  to  believe  a  little  more  in  me.  I  mean,  if  I 
can  feel  all  that's  splendid  in  her — then  I've  got 
something  to  hang  on  to — through  life  .  .  .  don't 
you  see?" 

Dr.  Harrod  frowned  again,  and  folded  his  arms. 
"I'm  afraid  I'm  more  interested,  Thorpe,  in  what 
Lilia  will  have — to  hang  on  to  ?" 

Dunster  answered  him  sharply.  "Now  you  are 
unjust,  sir !  But  not  to  me — to  Lilia.  If  I'm  not 
the  man  for  her — if  there's  a  yellow  streak  in  me 
that  can't  be  cleared  up — Lilia  won't  be  able  to  go 
through  with  it,  whether  she  cares  for  me  or  not. 
So  you  needn't  worry  about  Lilia.  She  simply  hap 
pens  to  be  made  that  way." 

He  found  his  hat  and  coat,  shook  hands  with 
Ruth,  nodded  a  rather  abrupt  good-night  to  Dr. 
Harrod,  and  was  gone. 

"I've  offended  him,  Ruth,  and  it  wasn't  nice  of 
me.  I  must  go  to  him  to-morrow  and  apologize. 
But  I  wish  I  could  like  him  better !" 

Dr.  Harrod  went  close  to  his  daughter  and  slipped 
his  arm  about  her.  Her  face  was  turned  from  him, 
and  he  was  comfortlessly  aware  that  she  had  made 
a  slight  motion  as  if  to  avoid  him.  And  now  he 
thought  he  knew  why,  for  her  whole  body  was 
trembling  within  his  arm. 

"Tired  out,  dear?"  he  asked.  "Of  course  you 
are.  I'm  sorry." 


184  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

She  seized  the  lapels  of  his  coat  almost  fiercely. 
"No,  I'm  not  tired  out — for  once.  I  shall  be — soon 
enough,  I  suppose.  .  .  .  But  not  to-night!  .  .  . 
Father,  something  absurd  has  happened  to  me — to 
me.  And  you've  got  to  laugh  at  me — and  help  me 
bear  it.  ...  Father,  when  Dunster  Thorpe  said 
good-night  to  me  just  now — I  wanted  to  throw  my 
arms  round  his  neck  and  beg  him  to  love  me.  .  .  . 
Why  don't  you  laugh,  dear!  It — it's  the  funniest 
thing  that  has  ever  happened  in  all  my  life." 


XIII 

Two  young  men,  Dr.  Franklin  P.  Gilman  and 
Dr.  Dunster  Thorpe,  were  seated  side  by  side  in 
a  retired  corner  of  the  smoking-room  of  one  of 
the  smaller  French  liners.  It  was  proving  a  com 
fortless  voyage.  The  ship  was  rolling  and  shudder 
ing  on  through  heavy  mid-winter  seas  and  the  smok 
ing-room  was  far  from  crowded.  Across  the  cabin 
from  them  a  single  game  of  bridge  was  in  progress, 
forming  a  somewhat  languid  centre  of  interest  for 
three  or  four  bilious-looking  spectators. 

The  two  young  men  had  Scotch  whiskey  and  a 
siphon  before  them,  but  their  filled  glasses  were 
almost  untouched.  They  were  conversing  steadily, 
without  laughter,  and  were  quite  unaware  that  old 
Peter  Creel,  who  was  fraternizing  with  himself  and 
had  just  lighted  his  final  pipeful  before  turning  in, 
was  observing  them  with  a  sardonic  amusement  which 
did  not  alter  his  habitual  expression.  Old  Peter 
Creel  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  a  solitary  life 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  185 

in  observing  his  fellow-men  with  sardonic  amuse 
ment,  and  he  had  crossed  the  Seven  Seas  so  many 
times  that  he  had  found  leisure  to  reduce  certain 
of  his  observations  to  rather  clumsy  aphorisms. 
uWhen  a  group  of  men  in  a  smoking-room  get  tired 
of  telling  dirty  stories,  they  always  start  a  serious 
discussion — and  they  always  end  up  by  discussing 
religion."  That  was  one  of  his  aphorisms.  And 
he  was  engaged  just  now  in  betting  himself  that 
those  two  keen-eyed  youngsters  over  there  were 
engaged  in  settling  the  hash  of  the  Universe.  So 
too,  perhaps,  they  were ;  though  not  quite  so  directly 
as  he  imagined. 

"Well,  at  any  rate,'*  Dr.  Gilman  was  saying,  "we 
know  where  we  stand  now.  We've  had  the  decency 
at  last  to  play  square  with  each  other.  It's  taken 
us  five  days — which  isn't  so  bad  at  that,  come  to 
think  of  it!  Judging  by  the  run  of  folks  we  might 
never  have  played  square  and  made  it  a  stand-up 
fight  at  all.  Genteel  knifing  in  the  back's  more  the 
ordinary  line  in  these  cases,  isn't  it?" 

"Probably,"  Dunster  admitted,  with  a  half-smile. 
"I  confess  the  temptation." 

"Oh,  so  do  I.  I  suppose  even  a  white  man's 
first  thought,  when  he  finds  himself  up  against  a 
rival,  is  to  do  him  dirt  somehow.  However,  I  guess 
we  are  white — " 

"Whitish,  anyway!"  struck  in  Dunster.  Dr.  Gil 
man  nodded,  and  persisted.  "That's  it.  So  the 
final  decision  rests  with  Lilia.  We  may  neither  of 
us  win  out,  for  that  matter.  But  I'm  going  to  take 
her  away  from  you  if  I  can — and  don't  you  forget 
it." 


186  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"I'm  not  likely  to,"  Dunster  quietly  responded. 
"You  can't  take  away  what  I've  never  honestly  won 
yet — so  you've  a  right  to  your  chance.  I've  had 
one  chance — and  missed  it.  You  wouldn't  have 
missed  it.  Well — but  that  doesn't  prove  anything. 
It  takes  some  men  longer  than  others  to  find  them 
selves — that's  all.  If  it  weren't  for  Lilia  I  might 
never  have  found  myself.  ...  If  I  have  found  my 
self!" 

The  boat  sharply  plunged,  then  rolled  over  to 
what  the  spines  of  the  passengers  protested  as  a 
perilous  angle  and,  for  a  sickening  moment,  hung 
there.  The  young  men  snatched  at  their  glasses  to 
save  them. 

"That  was  a  corker!"  grunted  Oilman.  "Of 
course,  I'm  not  entirely  a  romantic  dam-fool.  If  I 
should  lose  out,  I  don't  mean  to  say  I'd  let  it  ruin 
my  life,  or  any  book-rubbish  like  that.  I've  got  a 
difficult  job  to  do,  and  I  happen  to  want  to  do  it,  if 
possible,  before  I  get  composted.  I  know  what  love 
is,  all  right — and  where  it  belongs.  I'm  biologist 
enough  not  to  let  a  blind  instinct  fool  me  into  think 
ing  marriages  are  made  in  heaven — or  that  there 
is  any  such  idiotic  sky-factory.  But  I've  a  whole 
some  respect  for  Nature,  too ;  and  when  she  tells  me 
to  do  something  or  take  the  consequences — well,  I 
know  my  boss  and  get  busy.  And  there  isn't  a 
doubt  in  my  mind  about  Lilia — hasn't  been  ever 
since  the  day  her  boat  pulled  out.  I've  written  her 
and  told  her  so — and  not  had  a  line  from  her.  Not 
even  to  turn  me  down.  She's  the  queerest  kid  ever, 
I  guess.  .  .  ."  He  lifted  his  glass  to  his  lips  and 
drank  slowly.  "Damn  it  all,  Thorpe — we're  both 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  187 

jokes  at  bottom,  you  know;  any  unprejudiced  out 
sider  would  say  so.  Lilians  wonderful  to  us  because 
old  lady  Nature  has  put  her  best  patented  trick 
spell  on  us;  but  all  the  same,  strictly  speaking,  she's 
just  another  girl.  We're  drugged  and  dreaming, 
that's  all ;  we  can't  help  ourselves,  for  the  time  being, 
and  there's  no  particular  reason  why  we  should ;  but 
you  can't  get  away  from  the  fact  that  it's  all  nothing 
but — chemistry.  Eh?  ...  Let's  go  to  bed." 

"Might  as  well,"  said  Dunster.  "As  for  Lilians 
being  just  another  girl  .  .  .  oh,  well,  I've  a  job  too, 
if  it  comes  to  that.  Good-night." 

"Same  to  you.  We'll  be  hating  each  other  like 
hell,  I  suppose,  sooner  or  later;  it's  part  of  the  reac 
tion.  The  minute  I  saw  you  in  Prexy's  office  with 
Lilia,  up  at  Alden  that  day,  I  began  getting  ready 
to  dislike  you.  Funny  thing  —  chemistry!  If  it 
wasn't  for  Lilia  we  might  have  met  and  been  friends. 
Now  what  I  chiefly  want  is  to  down  you.  But  we're 
quits  there,  I  guess.  Well  .  .  ." 

The  two  young  men  got  with  some  difficulty  to 
their  feet  and  waited,  swaying  with  the  ship,  for  a 
moment  of  precarious  balance.  Dignity  is  one  of 
the  prerogatives  of  manhood  and  they  were  both 
concentrating  upon  its  preservation  before  attempt 
ing  to  steer  across  the  smoking-room.  Old  Peter 
Creel,  approaching  his  ultimate  puff,  still  sat  watch 
ing  them  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye.  "Humph! 
They've  got  it  all  settled,  have  they!"  he  commented 
to  his  Ego  with  grim  self-appreciation.  "Got  it  all 
straight.  God  and  everything.  Babies — !" 

He  knocked  out  his  pipe. 


188  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


xiy 

At  Havre,  in  the  inner  port,  and  just  before 
disembarkation,  a  cablegram  was  handed  to  Dun- 
ster  Thorpe.  His  hands  trembled  as  he  opened  it, 
for  he  knew  it  would  be  from  Isidore  Fuld,  one 
of  the  younger  theatrical  managers  of  New  York, 
who  had  been  doing  some  rather  fine  and  successful 
things  during  the  past  three  or  four  seasons.  Arthur 
Carswick,  who,  being  an  editor,  made  it  his  business 
to  know  everybody,  as  a  matter  of  course  knew 
Fuld;  and  before  leaving  town  for  the  holidays  he 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  arrange  for  a  meeting 
between  Fuld  and  Dunster.  Dunster  had  written 
Arthur  Carswick,  in  strict  confidence,  that  he  had 
completed  a  comedy  and  was  eager  to  bring  it  to 
Isidore  Fuld's  attention.  Dunster  knew  very  little 
of  the  New  York  theatre,  save  what  he  could  read 
of  it  in  the  newspapers;  but,  being  academically 
trained,  he  had  been  a  good  deal  impressed  by  Fuld's 
clever  exploitation  of  himself,  in  the  public  prints, 
as  a  manager  with  modernist  tendencies  and  uncom 
promising  artistic  ideals.  Fuld's  experiments,  for 
example,  with  what  was  beginning  to  be  called  the 
"new"  staging,  while  by  no  means  revolutionary, 
had  brought  to  one  or  two  of  his  recent  productions 
the  perfervid  admiration  of  the  "advanced."  This 
had  proved,  as  Fuld  had  shrewdly  foreseen,  a  good 
and  comparatively  cheap  form  of  advertising.  The 
"advanced"  are  nothing  if  not  loquacious,  both  with 
tongue  and  pen ;  once  start  them  talking  and  writing 
and  the  flood  rolls  on  of  its  own  momentum. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  189 

Dunster,  then,  had  lunched  with  Isidore  Fuld  and 
had  nerved  himself  to  talk  to  him  frankly  and  fully 
about  his  dramatic  ambitions.  Fuld  was  too  intel 
ligent  himself  not  to  recognize  exceptional  intelli 
gence  when  he  met  with  it;  and  he  could  feel,  more 
over,  in  Dunster 's  every  word,  the  emotional  drive 
of  a  consuming  "will  to  power."  A  man  thus  ener 
gized  and  equipped,  if  he  should  prove  also  to  have 
any  natural  knack  for  dramatic  composition,  might 
be  nursed  and  developed  into  a  real  find  for  the 
American  theatre — and  for  himself.  He  suspected 
that  the  comedy,  which  Dunster  described  for  him, 
would  prove  a  sufficiently  pretentious  and  amateur 
ish  affair;  but  there  was  certainly  an  "idea"  (mean 
ing  a  situation)  back  of  it,  and  the  manuscript 
would  soon  tell  him  what  he  most  wanted  to  know. 
Fuld's  instinct  for  the  theatre  was  profound.  If 
young  Thorpe  had  it  in  him  to  write  for  the  theatre, 
Fuld  was  confident  he  would  be  able  to  discover  this 
essential  fact  before  he  had  finished  three  pages  of 
"The  Tight-Rope  Lady."  (That  was  a  good  title, 
by  the  way;  a  surprisingly  good  title  for  a  beginner; 
he  could  smell  money  in  it!) 

Dunster,  as  a  result  of  his  conversation  with 
Isidore  Fuld,  had  returned  at  once  to  his  manuscript 
in  a  rage  of  determination.  An  extraordinary  chance 
glimmered  before  him,  and  no  imperfection  in  his 
work,  which  he  was  capable  of  discovering,  must 
be  permitted  to  jeopardize  it.  Shut  safe  from  inter 
ruption  in  Arthur  Carswick's  snug  quarters  on  Forty- 
fourth  Street,  he  spent  what  was  left  of  the  after 
noon  in  re-reading  his  comedy  aloud;  trying  out  the 
entrances  and  exits,  the  feel  of  the  speeches,  the 


190  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

swing  of  the  scenes — noting  with  an  almost  savage 
self-criticism  any  spots  or  sustained  passages  that 
seemed  to  him  flat  or  dull,  to  lack  progression,  con 
tinuous  movement  toward  a  pre-arranged,  climactic 
goal.  When  he  had  worked  through  his  manuscript 
in  this  way,  he  glanced  at  his  watch  and  was  aston 
ished  to  find  it  already  a  quarter  to  eight.  There 
would  be  just  time  for  him  to  get  a  hasty  bite,  with 
a  cup  of  strong  coffee,  at  a  little  "Rotisserie"  on 
Sixth  Avenue,  and  then  go  on  to  uThe  Missing 
Link" — if  he  could  manage  to  procure  a  single  seat 
from  a  speculator:  "The  Missing  Link"  being  with 
out  question  the  most  successful  comedy  produced  in 
New  York  for  a  number  of  years.  His  sudden  de 
sire  to  see  "The  Missing  Link"  was  not  due,  how 
ever,  to  any  light  craving  for  rest  and  entertainment. 
It  was  the  next  step  in  his  immediate  purpose.  If 
"The  Missing  Link"  was  the  most  successful  com 
edy  now  running,  then  he  must  immediately  analyze 
it  and  discover  the  secret  of  its  peculiar  attraction. 
When  he  returned  to  his  rooms  from  "The  Miss 
ing  Link"  he  was  feeling  enormously  encouraged. 
He  had  found  this  popular  comedy  to  be  a  very 
superficial  piece  of  work,  an  awkward  blending  of 
farce  and  romantic  sentimentality.  On  the  tech 
nical  side  it  was  adroit,  but  no  more  than  that; 
and  as  for  the  characters,  they  were  puppets  on 
wires — any  semblance  of  life  they  possessed  being 
loaned  to  them  by  the  mere  physical  presence 
and  idiosyncrasies  of  the  actors.  He  felt,  too, 
that  he  now  fully  understood  the  secret  of  its  amaz 
ing  popularity.  From  beginning  to  end,  it  was  a 
play  that  flattered  the  average  man  and  woman. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  191 

It  flooded  the  commonplace  American  scene  with  a 
roseate  glow.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Smith,  Brown, — stein, 
and  — ski  went  out  from  it  stroked  and  purring; 
confirmed  in  all  their  cheeriest  prejudices.  It  was 
for  them  the  world  had  been  created,  and  it  was 
obviously,  for  them,  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds : 
— a  world  wherein  a  very  moderate  shrewdness 
might  easily  achieve  the  ultimate  bliss  of  getting- 
rich-quick;  a  world  wherein  the  faithlessness  of  hus 
bands  was  a  possible  joke,  but  never,  finally,  a  dis 
agreeable  fact;  a  world  wherein  the  hardest  and 
coarsest  of  feminine  hearts  melted  into  tenderness 
and  truth  in  the  presence  of  a  strong  man's  sorrow, 
or  at  some  chance,  pathetic  word  on  the  lips  of  a 
neglected  child.  Yes;  it  would  be  easy  enough  to 
play  this  simple  game  of  flattery,  if,  on  the  whole,  it 
should  prove  advisable  to  play  it.  One  could  refine 
on  this  hat-and-rabbit  trick,  perhaps;  play  it  a  little 
more  delicately — and  still  "get  away  with  it!"  As 
a  diplomatic  stroke,  an  immediate  dramatic  success 
might  well  be  worth  some  slight  sacrifice  of  artistic 
sincerity.  For,  after  all,  one  must  get  there  some 
how;  one  must  definitely  arrive,  and  put  money  in 
one's  purse.  With  a  bank  account  and  a  popular 
following  once  established,  nothing  simpler  than  to 
detach  oneself  gradually  from  the  mob  and  spend 
one's  maturer  years  in  placating  posterity. 

Thus,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  Dunster.  And  it 
was  in  this  cynical  spirit  of  compromise  that  he  had 
again,  that  night,  taken  up  "The  Tight-Rope  Lady." 
Thirty-six  hours  later  he  carried  his  revised  man 
uscript  to  a  type-writing  agency,  and  within  four  days 
a  fair  copy  was  in  the  hands  of  Isidore  Fuld.  It 


192  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

was  the  evening  of  the  day  when  he  had  handed  his 
manuscript  to  Fuld  that  he  had  belatedly  remem 
bered  it  was  his  duty  to  call  on  Ruth  Harrod  and 
her  father.  .  .  . 

Yes ;  Lilia  needed  him  now — and  Lilia  was  worth 
any  sacrifice.  Success  might  or  might  not  come  to 
him  soon;  sooner  or  later  it  must  come;  it  would  be 
welcome  at  any  time;  but  it  would  not  be  perfect 
unless  Lilia  were  with  him  to  crown  it — unless  her 
love  should  then  give  him  the  ultimate  praise  and 
adoration  his  ego  craved.  All  the  same,  it  was  a 
rash  adventure — a  costly  one,  too,  for  a  man  whose 
savings  were  not  large,  and  whose  immediate  future 
was  still  uncertain;  and  it  was  difficult  to  leave  New 
York  with  so  much  hanging  in  the  balance.  Surely 
Lilia  would  appreciate  this  and  be  touched  to  find 
he  had  not  hesitated  .  .  .  (well,  no;  he  had  not 
hesitated — at  least,  not  long!) 

And,  on  the  very  eve  of  sailing,  it  was  exasperating 
to  learn  that  Isidore  Fuld,  caught  in  an  unexpected 
eddy  of  work,  had  not  even  found  time  to  open  his 
manuscript.  Fuld,  however,  had  promised  to  get 
at  it  the  following  day — one  day  too  late! — and 
Dunster  had  wrung  from  him  a  promise  to  cable,  at 
Dunster's  expense,  his  first  impression  of  the  man 
uscript —  whether  favorable  or  the  reverse.  Fuld 
had  been  patient  with  Dunster's  insistence,  but  obvi 
ously  a  little  bored  by  it.  "It's  very  unlikely,"  he 
had  explained,  "that  I  shall  be  able  to  send  you  any 
thing  definite  after  a  first  reading.  In  any  case  I 
should  be  unable  to  make  any  arrangement  with  you 
until  after  you  return.  I  hope  you  are  not  counting 
upon  a  production;  but  if  I  see  any  possibilities  in 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  193 

the  thing,  we  may  be  able  later  to  talk  matters  over." 
With  this  Dunster  had  had,  perforce,  to  be  con 
tent.  .  .  .  And  now  the  cable  itself  was  in  his  hand. 
No  wonder  his  fingers  twitched  and  fumbled  clum 
sily  at  the  envelope ! 

Play  excellent  but  needs  work.  Strongly  urge  im 
mediate  return  if  production  desired.  Answer. 

FULD. 

The  improbable  words  danced  a  jig  on  the  paper 
before  Dunster' s  eyes.  Using  his  solar  plexus  as  a 
centre,  the  Universe  swung  with  a  smooth  rush 
round  him.  When,  finally,  the  Cosmic  Top  ceased 
spinning,  Dunster  found  himself  sitting  on  the  edge 
of  a  trunk,  weak  and  sick  and  supremely  happy.  Of 
course  he  would  go  back  at  once !  Just  as  soon  as 
he  could  reach  Paris  and  arrange  for  the  return 
sailing!  He  would  be  able  to  see  Lilia  and  explain 
to  her  all  he  now  rationally  hoped — for  them  both ! 
Perhaps,  even,  he  would  not  have  to  return  alone. 
But  alone  or  not,  he  would  be  able  to  make  Lilia 
understand  how  supremely  now,  for  her  sake,  he 
valued  this  stroke  of  fortune.  Why,  of  course  she 
would  understand.  How  could  she  help  but  under 
stand!  She  must — / 

Five  words  sped  back  beneath  the  Atlantic : 

Sailing  within  the  week. 

THORPE. 


194  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


XV 

When  Lilia,  two  days  before  her  father's  wed 
ding,  had  slipped  away  to  Paris,  she  had  not 
chosen  her  destination  at  random.  For  in  Paris 
lived  and  labored  M.  Emile  Quillard,  that  kindly, 
elephantine  autocrat,  that  fanatic  idealist  of  the  the 
atre;  a  man  who  had  visited  her  father  at  his  villa 
on  more  than  one  occasion.  M.  Quillard' s  last  ap 
pearance  in  Settignano  had  been  during  the  spring 
of  the  year  that  brought  President  Harrod  so  un 
expectedly  into  Lilia's  life ;  and  since  that  time  Lilia 
had  not  seen  M.  Quillard,  but  she  had  had  one  letter 
from  him,  sent  shortly  after  his  departure,  which, 
though  it  had  first  amused  her,  she  had  ever  since 
cherished.  The  truth  is  that  M.  Quillard — an  im 
pressionable  being — had  been  much  struck  by  the 
piquancy  and  temperamental  charm  of  Chenoworth's 
little  daughter  and  had  divined  in  her  an  exceptional 
talent  for  the  stage.  He  had  even  offered,  if  M. 
Chenoworth  would  consent,  to  train  her  himself  in 
his  own  special  company, — such  an  offer  as  many 
a  despairing  aspirant  in  France  would  have  given 
her  last  drop  of  blood  to  receive !  M.  Chenoworth, 
however,  without  consulting  Lilia,  had  declined  the 
offer.  Bohemian — in  a  sense — though  he  was,  it 
was  evident  that  Anson  Chenoworth  did  not  con 
sider  a  career  on  the  French  stage  as  entirely  suitable 
for  a  daughter  of  his  house.  M.  Quillard  had  been, 
perhaps,  a  little  piqued  by  his  refusal.  ...  At  any 
rate,  on  leaving  Settignano,  he  had  written  the  letter 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  195 

to  Lilia  which  she  still  cherished  and  which,  roughly 
translated,  said  in  part: 

— as  you  grow  older ,  mademoiselle,  you  will  find 
— /  am  sure  of  it — you  were  not  created  for  the 
stupidities  of  life.  There  is  in  you  a  something  vivid 
and  impetuous,  a  something  with  wings.  You  are 
of  those  who  aspire  or  perish.  But  why,  then,  per 
ish?  That  is  to  say,  why  perish  ingloriously?  Why 
not  aspire? 

To  be  an  artist  is  to  desire  perfection.  Therefore 
it  is  true,  since  life  knows  not  perfection,  that  the 
life  of  every  artist  is  a  personal  tragedy.  I  will  not 
deceive  you,  mademoiselle.  All  life  is  failure,  but 
only  in  the  life  of  art  is  all  failure  self -conscious. 
The  true  artist,  however  celebrated,  knows  always 
that  he  has  failed.  The  so-called  vanity  of  the  artist 
is  a  most  pitiful  sham.  It  is  just  another  masque  he 
wears.  Do  not  be  misled  by  it,  mademoiselle.  I 
myself  am  called  a  vain  man.  I — who  bleed  in 
wardly,  night  and  day! 

It  is  not  true  that  Prometheus  conquered.  He 
died  on  his  rock.  He  would  depose  the  dull  God 
of  the  bourgeoisie  and  build  a  more  beautiful  world. 
He  was  the  first  artist.  And  he  died  on  his  rock.. 
We  others  are  the  children  of  Prometheus,  made- 
moiselle.  You  also.  You  will  spread  wings  and  beat 
against  your  chains.  And  you  will  die,  torn  and 
bleeding.  But  you  will  be  glad  of  that  death,  mad 
emoiselle.  Only  those  who  have  died  so  have  really 
lived. 

And  there  are,  meanwhile,  compensations  —  ah, 
but  yes!  compensations!  There  is  I  do  not  know 


196  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

what  of  ecstasy  in  this  martyrdom!  Courage,  mad 
emoiselle.  I  do  not  offer  you  roses,  I  offer  you 
thorns. — For  example,  a  place  in  my  company. 
We  play  only  plays  that  live.  No  hack-work.  No 
commercial  trickery.  Life.  Beauty.  Form.  The 
Soul. — //  you  speak  but  a  yes  or  a  no — if  you  merely 
walk  on  and  off  again — you  will  not,  at  least,  be 
serving  Mammon.  I  beg  you  to  think  it  over,  mad 
emoiselle.  You  are  young.  But  one  is  never  too 
young  to  be  oneself — to  assert  oneself.  On  the 
contrary.  Only  one  is  often,  and  before  one  knows 
it,  already  too  old. 

Lilians  first  impression  of  this  letter  had  been 
of  its  flamboyant  absurdity.  She  was  flattered  by 
it,  yet  it  made  her  laugh.  The  picture  of  that  poor, 
fat  M.  Quillard  as  Prometheus,  bleeding  inwardly 
night  and  day — !  It  was  too  grotesque.  But  later 
she  grew  ashamed  of  her  mirth.  M.  Quillard,  after 
all,  was  an  artist,  a  great  artist.  Money  meant  noth 
ing  to  him.  He  cared  for  beauty;  he  did  aspire.  .  .  . 
And  if  such  a  man  could  detect  in  her  some  sparks 
of  the  true  Promethean!  Well,  it  finally  came  to 
this,  that  Lilia  dated  her  womanhood — a  new  birth 
— from  the  hour  when  M.  Quillard's  letter  no  longer 
struck  her  as  merely  funny.  She  had  carried  his 
letter  with  her  to  Alden.  It  was  with  her  on  the 
train  to  Paris  when  she  had  left  her  father's  house 
and  protection  for  the  last  time. 

On  reaching  Paris,  she  telephoned  at  once,  from 
the  Gare  de  Lyon,  to  M.  Quillard. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  197 


XVI 

Emile  Quillard,  better  known  to  the  world, 
perhaps,  by  his  later  stage-name,  "Mondory," 
lived  and  labored  in  the  same  building,  an  ancient 
structure  on  the  Rue  des  Francs  Bourgeois,  in  the 
heart  of  the  old  Marais  quarter  of  Paris.  He  could 
hardly,  after  long  searching,  have  selected  a  less 
eligible  spot  to  establish  a  theatre.  The  Marais 
quarter,  it  is  true,  is  of  the  highest  interest  to  the 
antiquarian,  containing  precious  relics  of  the  pictur 
esque,  insanitary  mediaeval  Paris,  most  of  which  is 
already  with  the  snows  of  yesteryear;  but  the  mod 
ern  Paris  of  affairs,  of  fashion,  of  art,  knows  it  not. 
Or,  rather,  knew  it  not  —  until,  shortly  after  the 
opening  of  the  century,  the  eccentric  Mondory  suc 
ceeded,  against  every  probability,  in  attracting  "tout 
Paris"  to  the  performances  of  the  repertoire  com 
pany  he  had  established  (and  then,  it  was  predicted, 
had  buried)  in  that  remote  tangle  of  mean  streets. 
"Les  Comediens  du  Marais"  —  for  that  was  the 
name  M.  Quillard  had  given  his  theatre — became  a 
success  of  curiosity  in  its  first  season,  a  success  of 
esteem  in  its  second,  and  an  international  institution 
within  the  two  or  three  seasons  which  more  pros 
perously  followed.  It  had  by  then  established  itself 
as  one  of  the  things  in  Paris  not  to  be  missed;  and 
touring  American  school-ma'ams,  from  Maine  to 
Nebraska,  had  it  down  in  their  little  red  note-books 
as  one  of  the  indispensable  "sights" — along  with 
Mona  Lisa,  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  and  the  Moulin 


198  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Rouge.  Thus  it  is  that  the  impossible  not  infre 
quently  comes  to  pass. 

Emile  Quillard,  when  he  first  undertook  this  sin 
gular  venture,  was  a  mature  man  with  an  already 
solid  Parisian  reputation  —  as  character  actor,  as 
theatrical  director,  and  as  an  "original."  He  had 
audacity,  a  rapid  pen  and  a  ready  tongue,  and  his 
"originality"  chiefly  consisted  in  his  constantly  and 
wittily  expressed  disgust  with  the  modern  stage — 
from  which,  however,  he  had  been  sufficiently  tal 
ented  and  astute  to  derive  a  moderate  fortune.  His 
incessant  diatribes  against  the  theatres  which  he 
served  were  considered  amusing  enough  and  were 
thought  to  be  merely  a  pose;  so,  when  he  suddenly 
announced  his  intention  of  breaking  once  for  all  with 
the  Parisian  theatre  as  organized,  when  he  declared, 
moreover,  that  he  would  devote  the  rest  of  his  life 
to  the  creation  of  something  better,  all  Paris  laughed, 
shrugged  its  shoulders,  and  murmured  indulgently 
—"this  good  Quillard!" 

But  when,  a  little  later,  it  became  known  that  this 
good  Quillard  had  purchased  what  degraded  frag 
ments  remained  of  the  once  magnificent  Hotel  Cha- 
bert,  a  down-at-heels  antiquity  situated  on — of  all 
streets — the  Rue  des  Francs  Bourgeois;  when,  too, 
the  rumor  spread  that  he  was  actually  proposing  to 
remodel  it  into  a  combination  of  theatre  and  labora 
tory  of  dramatic  art — why,  all  Paris  looked  grave; 
maliciously  grave.  "A  little  touched,  after  all,  the 
poor  man!  He  wishes  to  ruin  himself,  at  his  age! 
Quel  dada!" 

Nevertheless,  the  poor  man  mounted  his  hobby 
with  a  large  smiling  tranquillity.  Journalistically 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  199 

petitioned  as  to  why  he  had  selected  so  mad  a  loca 
tion,  he  was  content  to  be  cryptic.  "I  am  an  artist 
of  the  theatre  in  an  age  that  has  no  theatre.  Alors 
— I  return  to  my  origins.  I  begin  again  at  the  foun 
tain-head.  You  will  see." 

And  a  later  pronunciamento  was  considered  equal 
ly  fantastic.  "Art  has  but  one  passion — beauty.  But 
the  theatre  of  our  days  is  divorced  from  art.  If 
you  are  a  lover  of  beauty  never  enter  a  modern 
playhouse  —  whether  subventioned  by  the  State,  or 
by  American  tourists.  It  is  time  to  end  all  this. 
I  announce  for  next  season  a  new  company:  'Les 
Comediens  du  Marais?  '  This  was  signed  "Mon- 
dory";  but  it  was  immediately  understood  that 
Mondory  was  but  a  nom  de  guerre — and  the  latest 
whimsy  of  "this  good  Quillard." 

Lilians  taxi  stopped  before  the  banded  pillars  of 
a  heavy  late-Renaissance  archway  squeezed  between 
a  huddle  of  mean  buildings.  A  great,  double,  nail- 
studded  door  closed  the  archway,  above  which  hung 
an  old-fashioned  sign-board  of  brightly  painted  wood 
(gold,  scarlet,  ultramarine)  :  "Les  Comediens  du 
Marais"  At  a  smaller  door,  let  into  one  of  the 
valves  of  the  great  door  and  now  standing  open, 
loomed  M.  Quillard,  hat  in  hand,  vast,  affable, 
serene.  He  stepped  across  the  raised  lintel  into  the 
street  and  himself  opened  the  door  of  the  taxi. 
"My  dear  child,"  he  said  simply,  "it  was  predestined. 
I  knew,  sooner  or  later,  you  would  come."  Then 
he  paid  off  the  taxi-driver  and  reaching  into  the  cab 
seized  Lilia's  trim  American  suit-case.  "Not  a  word ! 
For  the  present,  mademoiselle,  you  are  my  guest. 


200  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

That  is  understood.  .  .  .  Ah  good!  Frangoise — 
carry  this  for  me  to  the  room  you  are  preparing  for 
Mile.  Chenowort'.  .  .  .  My  dear  child,  how  for 
tunate  you  should  come  to  me  precisely  now.  We 
are  blocking  in  a  new  play  and  there's  a  small  part 
— oh,  merely  a  bit — a  tiny  spot  of  color,  but  the 
tone  must  be  pure  and  vibrant — which  I  have  been  at 
my  wits*  end  to  fill!" 

Lilia  now  found  herself  beside  M.  Quillard  in 
an  interior  court,  of  moderate  dimensions,  paved 
with  cobblestones.  A  restored  and  modified  Hotel 
Chabert  surrounded  her  on  three  sides.  The  fagade 
before  her  was  a  delightful  composition  of  the  early 
Renaissance,  blending  Gothic  and  Roman  details 
with  a  wayward  fantasy,  an  effect  almost  childlike, 
which  was  yet — like  the  contemporary  poems  of 
Ronsard — the  tended  flower  of  a  profound  artistic 
seriousness  and  sophistication.  Into  this,  the  main 
body  of  the  ancient  structure,  M.  Quillard  had 
introduced  a  small  theatre,  seating  not  more  than 
three  hundred  and,  perhaps,  twenty  or  thirty  per 
sons;  but — unlike  most  Parisian  theatres — seating 
them  comfortably,  without  crowding,  and  in  a  setting 
of  studied  and  quiet  distinction.  For  the  present, 
however,  Lilia — though  she  longed  to  do  so — was 
not  permitted  to  visit  the  theatre  itself.  M.  Quil 
lard  led  her  at  once  toward  a  low  doorway  in  the 
wing  of  the  hotel  at  their  left,  the  great  scarred 
basement  stones  of  which  were  first  laid  together 
when  Charles  V.  was  King  of  France.  But  both  the 
rather  cramped  wings  of  the  lovely  main  pavilion, 
Lilia  had  noted,  were,  in  effect  at  least,  starkly 
mediaeval.  No  doubt  the  centuries  had  misused 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  201' 

them  sadly,  effacing  whatever  grim  picturesqueness- 
they  may  once  have  possessed;  and  M.  Quillard,. 
content  merely  to  repair  and  refit  them,  had  not 
attempted  to  remodel  the  flat,  prison-like  surface 
of  their  exterior  walls.  One  charming  detail  re 
mained,  however;  an  authentic  fragment — a  tiny 
mediaeval  tourelle,  with  a  single  window,  set  in  the 
angle  between  the  main  pavilion  and  the  wing  which 
Lilia  was  about  to  enter.  As  she  crossed  the  court,, 
her  eyes  were  drawn  to  this  delicate  tourelle,  and 
she  paused  —  transfixed  by  a  sudden  and  poignant 
sense  of  recognition.  She  had  seen  it  before,  known 
it  before — but  when,  where !  Oh,  but  certainly — 
how  could  she  have  forgotten  it  was  part  of  her 
life!  That  picture  in  the  old  fairy-book;  once  her 
favorite  book,  her  favorite  picture  I  Page  227.  .  .  . 
Why,  that  was  the  window  from  which  the  Princess 
Rapunzel  let  down  her  golden  torrent  of  hair — 
only,  she,  she  herself,  had  always  in  those  days  been 
the  Princess  Rapunzel!  That  was  her  little  tower, 
then — her  tower;  her  window;  her  room  beyond  it! 

"My  dear  child,  you  have  tears  in  your  eyes!" 
exclaimed  M.  Quillard. 

Lilia  smiled  at  him,  dimly.    "Tears  of  joy!    I've 
found  it  again — after  all  these  years.     My  tower — 
my  own  little  tower.     I  was  the  Princess,  you  see 
— I  let  my  hair  down — oh,  yards  and  yards  of  it — 
from  that  very  window.    My  shining  hair  I" 

"Lucky  Prince!"  murmured  M.  Quillard.  And 
added,  indulgently,  "May  one  ask  his  fortunate 
name?" 

"His  name? — Oh,  but  the  Prince  never  seemed 
to  matter.  It  was  the  little  tower  that  mattered,. 


202  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

and  the  window,  and — most  of  all,  I'm  afraid — 
just  me" 

M.  Quillard  became  grave.  "You  are  right, 
Princess.  Those  are  the  things  that  finally  matter 
— to  every  born  artist.  Ah,  yes!  In  the  end,  not 
even  the  Public  matters — only  our  private  dreams. 
But  there  will  always  be  a  Prince  beneath  your  win 
dow,  and  you  may  even  let  down  your  shining  hair 
to  him — who  knows !  These  things,  these  negligible 
things,  happen;  they  even  become  habitual.  But 
always  you  will  forget  him;  or  simply,  one  day, 
he  will  no  longer  seem  important — no,  not  important 
at  all."  Then  M.  Quillard  clapped  his  hands  softly, 
and  laughed  like  a  great  overgrown  boy.  "Good! 
good!  The  coincidence  is  perfect!  The  window 
of  the  tourelle  lights  an  alcove  of  the  very  room 
Frangoise  has  prepared  for  you  Didn't  I  tell  you 
it  was  all  predestined — ?  This  way,  if  you  please. 
...  I  entreat  you  to  enter  my  enchanted  palace, 
Mile,  la  Princesse  Lointaine — " 


XVII 

Half  an  hour  later,  Lilia,  again  conducted  by 
Frangoise,  a  taciturn,  middle-aged  chambermaid 
wearing  the  inevitable  felt  slippers  of  her  profession, 
descended  from  the  little  suite  of  two  rooms  which 
had  been  rather  hastily  prepared  for  her  to  Mon- 
dory's  sacro-sanct  private  study;  a  small,  bare  cham 
ber,  more  like  the  cell  of  a  monk  than  like  the 
usual  cluttered,  luxurious  "den"  of  an  artistic  celeb- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  203 

rity.  The  great  man  was  seated  on  a  long,  low 
bench  before  a  long,  plain  table  of  oak,  on  which 
were  a  number  of  drawings — color  notes,  costume 
designs,  and  the  like — and  two  or  three  working- 
models  for  stage-sets  neatly  made  from  pasteboard. 
One  of  these  working-models  stood  directly  before 
him;  he  had  evidently  been  studying  it  with  absorbed 
attention.  Without  rising,  he  nodded  in  friendly 
fashion  to  Lilia  and  beckoned  her  to  a  place  on  the 
bench  beside  him.  Frangoise  silently  withdrew  and 
closed  the  door  of  the  study  after  her. 

Lilia  was  fully  aware  that  by  every  ordinary 
social  standard  her  position  in  this  house — for  she 
had  already  decided  to  remain  there — was  a  com 
promising  one;  but  she  was  equally  aware  that  she 
was  now  entering,  deliberately,  upon  a  life  to  which 
ordinary  standards  did  not  apply.  On  the  Con 
tinent  the  artist,  in  any  medium,  is  more  definitely  a 
person  apart  from  the  canalized  flow  of  our  mechano- 
mercantile  civilization  than  he  is  ever  quite  per 
mitted  to  be  in  England  or  America.  The  continen 
tal  races  understand  rather  better,  perhaps,  what 
the  dedicated  artist  is  driving  at,  and  they  instinc 
tively  respect  him  —  whereas  the  Englishman  or 
American  instinctively  distrusts  him.  And  no  doubt, 
granted  their  immediate  aims,  they  do  well;  for  no 
artist  worthy  the  name  will  ever  fit  comfortably  into 
a  scheme  of  life  whose  normal  aims  are  efficiency 
and  respectability.  In  everything  beautiful  there 
is  always  a  touch  of  wildness,  a  something  appar 
ently  accidental — not  merely  given  or  foreseen;  and 
the  varied  bohemianism  of  the  artist  has  its  roots 
deep,  therefore,  in  the  not  wholly  tamed  nature  of 


204  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

his  creative  task.  His  creative  task  being — is  it  not  ? 
— to  respond  by  secret  affinities  to  certain  harmonic 
effects,  or  patterns,  which  would  otherwise  remain 
hidden  in  the  welter  of  existence — to  respond  to 
them,  and  even  perhaps,  if  fortunate  after  long 
effort,  to  disengage  and  isolate  them  for  the  con 
tinuing  joy  of  mankind.  .  .  .  But  Lilia  was  not 
metaphysical,  and  she  felt  all  this  more  simply,  as 
a  too-long-absent  happiness,  an  exultation,  a  cri  de 
cosur: 

"At  last!    At  last!" 

Not  that  the  words  themselves  passed  her  lips; 
but  they  sang  within  her,  and  the  full  emotion  be 
hind  them  found  an  outward  expression  that  needed 
no  words.  Turning  toward  her  once  more,  the  great 
Mondory  was  almost  startled  by  the  sparkling  inten 
sity  of  life  which  seemed  to  radiate  visibly  from 
Lilians  slight  body,  from  her  clear  green-blue  eyes, 
her  vivid,  half-smiling  mouth,  her  vivid  hair  1 

"Magnificent!"  he  murmured,  "Magnificent.  .  .  . 
My  dear  child,  never  let  it  die !" 

Her  eyebrows  drew  slightly  together.  Die.  .  .  . 
The  word  seemed  strange  to  her  just  then;  meaning 
less.  "Die—  ?"  she  echoed. 

"That  flame  in  you!  Superb.  To  have  that  is 
to  have  everything — everything!" 

He  spread  his  hands  before  her  in  a  momentary 
attitude  that  was  pure  adoration,  an  adoration  freed 
from  every  element  of  personal  desire :  a  brief,  in 
stinctive  tribute  to  the  one  goddess  he  served,  Beauty 
— now  so  unexpectedly,  and  so  quintessentially  re 
vealed.  Then  his  hands  dropped,  and  he  sighed. 
"Ah,  mademoiselle — I  am  growing  old !  .  .  .  Come 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  205 

then — to  work,  to  work!  God  is  doubtless  good; 
but  the  good  God,  in  my  humble  opinion,  is  bored 
by  the  flattery  of  idlers.  Are  you  willing  to  work 
hard,  Lilia?  To  be  a  slave?  But  a  galley-slave, 
I  tell  you.  Hein—r9 

For  all  answer,  Lilia  ran  to  him,  took  her  place 
on  the  low  bench  beside  him  and  laid  her  hand  in 
his. 


XVIII 

Dr.  Thorpe  and  Dr.  Gilman,  lunching  together  on 
the  boat-train  to  Paris,  had  agreed  to  play  fair  with 
one  another.  They  had  tossed  a  coin  for  the  oppor 
tunity  of  the  first  call  upon  Lilia;  and  Dr.  Thorpe 
had  won.  Each  young  man  had  in  his  possession  a 
copy  of  the  following  cablegram,  the  original  having 
been  received  by  Dr.  Harrod  two  days  before  they 
sailed: 

Comediens  Marais,  Rue  Francs  Bourgeois.  De 
plorable.  Writing. 

CHENOWORTH. 

To  say  that  this  cablegram  had  puzzled  and  dis 
turbed  Dr.  Harrod  and  Ruth,  and  these  two  young 
men,  is  a  mild  assertion. 

"We've  all  heard  of  the  Comediens  du  Marais, 
of  course,"  Dr.  Harrod  had  commented.  "Every 
body  has.  In  fact,  the  last  time  I  was  in  Paris  I 
attended  a  performance  there;  a  very  fine  one,  I'm 
bound  to  say :  a  play  by  the  Russian  writer,  Tchek- 


206  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

hof — 'The  Cherry  Orchard.'  Queer,  rambling,  in 
consequential  sort  of  piece;  I  was  amazed  at  the 
effect  it  made  on  me.  However — is  it  possible  Lilia 
can  have  joined  the  company?  Would  she  be  able 
to  play  in  French,  Ruth,  do  you  suppose?" 

They  had  discussed  Chenoworth's  message  from 
every  possible  angle,  but  no  one  of  them  felt  that 
much  light  had  been  generated,  although  Dunster 
had  been  able  to  inform  them  that  Lilia's  heart  was 
set  upon  a  stage  career. 

One  gusty,  comfortless  morning  on  the  boat,  hud 
dled  together  in  a  lounge-corner  of  the  empty  smok 
ing-room,  Dunster  and  Frank  Oilman  had,  as  by 
common  consent,  returned  to  this  doubtful  matter. 

"I've  been  talking  to  Mockel,"  Dr.  Oilman  began 
suddenly.  "He's  a  rabid  scientist;  but  all  the  same, 
like  most  Frenchmen,  I  guess,  he  loves  the  theatre. 
And  he  knows  everybody  in  Paris  worth  knowing. 
I  mentioned  no  names — naturally  not.  But  I  can't 
say  I  got  much  comfort  from  the  conversation." 

"What  kind  of  comfort  were  you  looking  for?" 

"O  come !  Let's  spit  it  out — what  we're  both 
afraid  of!  What's  the  use  trying  to  disguise  it  from 
each  other?  I  don't  suppose  the  stage  is  a  school 
of  morality  for  young  girls  in  any  country.  But 
in  France — on  the  Continent  generally,  so  far  as  I 
can  learn — chastity  is  a  positive  barrier  to  success 
as  an  actress.  No  matter  how  much  talent  she  has, 
a  beginner  can't  even  get  a  job — unless  she's  willing 
to  pay  for  it.  Mockel  simply  shrugs  and  smiles. 
There's  only  one  question  to  ask  about  an  actress — 
can  she  act?  That's  his  way  of  putting  it.  As  for 
the  Comediens  du  Marais,  Mockel  says  he  knows  the 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  207 

director  well.  His  name's  Quillard,  but  he  calls 
himself  Mondory.  Mockel  thinks  he  runs  the  most 
satisfying  theatre  in  Paris.  .  .  .  Well;  finally  I 
asked  Mockel  whether  it  would  be  possible  for  a 
girl,  without  previous  stage  experience,  to  get  a  job 
from  Mondory.  (Oh,  nothing's  impossible,'  he  an 
swered;  4I  presume  Mondory  has  his  little  weak 
nesses  like  another.  .  .  .' '  Frank  Oilman  paused 
for  a  moment,  then,  as  Dunster  did  not  respond,  he 
continued  quietly:  uNot  that  I'm  a  Puritan,  you  un 
derstand.  Only,  if  Lilia's  that  sort " 

Dunster  interrupted  him. 
"She  isn't  that  sort.    Don't  you  know  that?" 
"Her  mother  was.    And  you  needn't  look  shocked 
either,  Thorpe !     You're  just  as  worried  as  I  am — 
just  as  worried  as  Dr.  Harrod  was,  and  Miss  Har- 
rod,  too!     If  we  were  convinced  that  Lilia  couldn't 
possibly  go  wrong  under  such  circumstances,  why 
should  we  be  worried?    We  wouldn't  be.     Only — 


we  are." 


"I'm  not,"  said  Dunster.  "All  that  sort  of  thing 
— no;  it  would  be  too  ugly  for  her.  She  couldn't 
go  on  with  it."  He  had  surprised  himself  by  the 
passionate  certainty  of  his  reply. 

"But  there's  plenty  to  worry  about,"  he  contin 
ued,  still  with  that  odd  accompanying  sense  of  self- 
surprise.  "Lilia's  quite  likely  to  ruin  her  life  in  her 
own  way.  She  has  no  common  sense,  no" — the  word 
astounded  him  as  he  uttered  it — "no  grab  in  her! 
But  I'm  not  getting  it — I'm  not  half  getting  what  I 
mean.  See  here,  Gilman — put  it  this  way :  I  want  to 
write  plays;  Lilia  wants  to  act.  But  what  I  want 
most  is  independence — and  to  be  known  everywhere, 


208  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

l>y  everybody.  I  can't  write  anything,  you  see,  with 
out  wondering  whether  it's  a  step  in  the  right  direc 
tion — without  scheming  to  make  it  so.  That's  ex 
actly  what  Lilia  dislikes  in  me.  Life  with  her  is 
pure  impulse.  She  wants  to  act — well,  because  she 
wants  to  act.  It's  the  one  way  she  can  give  herself 
— entire.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  can't  explain  it  as  I'd  like  to! 
But  beauty — I  wish  I'd  the  nerve  to  call  it  spiritual 
beauty — that's  the  clue  to  Lilia,  somehow.  .  .  . 
Have  you  the  least  idea  what  I'm  driving  at?" 

"Yes,"  said  Frank  Gilman.  "Pure  science  is  an 
other  way,  you  know." 

"Another  way — ?" 

"Of  giving  yourself  —  entire.  —  But  I  always 
thought  the  one  impulse  behind  acting,  even  great 
acting,  was  personal  vanity." 

Dunster  grunted  his  dissent.  "Pure  science  has  a 
lot  to  learn,  then!" 

"It  has,"  admitted  Frank  Gilman.  "That's  pre 
sumably  why  it  exists.  And  I'll  admit  I've  always 
been  prejudiced  against  people  like  the  kid — like 
Lilia — if  she's  really  what  you  say  she  is.  All  in 
stinct  and  intuition,  I  mean — with  no  grasp  on  real 
ity.  But  I  didn't  get  that  side  of  her  at  all.  What 
hit  me  so  hard  was  her  being  so  damn  pretty — and 
then,  her  grit!  The  way  nothing  downed  her.  .  .  . 
Of  course,  when  you  begin  to  talk  about  Beauty, 
with  a  capital  B,  I'm  lost — I'm  not  even  in  the  neigh 
borhood.  That's  the  kind  of  artists'  prattle  that 
makes  me  sick.  I  never  heard  the  kid  talk  like  that, 
and  I  was  with  her  a  good  part  of  every  day  for 
nearly  two  weeks." 

"Oh,"  said  Dunster,  dry  and  short,  "you'll  never 


JLILIA   CHENOWORTH  209 

hear  Lilia  talk  like  that;  nor  me  again,  probably. 
I  was  merely  trying  to  show  you  what  she  lives  by; 
and  it  isn't  Lilia's  fault  if  I  made  a  mess  of  it.  Any 
way,  you  seem  to  have  muffed  the  one  point  I  was 
trying  to  make.  Lilia  won't  'go  wrong/  as  you  put 
it— at  least,  not  for  her  own  advantage.  Do  you 
realize  she's  thrown  her  father  over  just  when  he's 
married  an  enormous  fortune?  If  you  must  worry 
about  Lilia,  that's  the  sort  of  thing  to  worry  about. 
She  hasn't  the  least  notion  of  what  it  means  to  play 
safe." 

Forty-eight  hours  after  this  conversation  these 
friendly-hostile  young  men,  lunching  together  on  the 
boat-train  to  Paris,  had  tossed  a  coin.  .  .  . 

At  the  office  of  the  steamship  agent  Dunster  had 
had  no  difficulty  in  arranging  for  his  return  passage; 
the  boat  would  sail  in  just  seven  days.  He  had 
thought  best  to  make  certain  of  all  this  before  tak 
ing  a  cab  to  the  distant  Rue  des  Francs  Bourgeois. 
It  was  not  yet  half-past-four,  but  night  had  come 
suddenly  upon  Paris,  accompanied  by  a  penetrating 
drizzle  of  rain.  Dunster,  who  had  rushed  from  the 
boat-train  to  his  hotel  and  from  hotel  to  steamship 
agency  in  a  state  of  mind  which  he  supposed  to  be 
wholly  collected  and  matter  of  fact,  but  which  was 
in  reality  dream-like,  now  stepped  out  from  the 
lighted  office  of  the  agency  to  the  comparative  dark 
ness  of  a  broad,  thronged  street.  And  suddenly 
everything  went  hostile  and  strange  to  him  and  he 
was  aware  of  a  spinal  thrill  that  was  almost  fear. 
Paris! — What  was  he  doing  in  this  unknown  city, 
whose  people  spoke  a  living  tongue  which  he  had 


210  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

studied  from  books  like  a  dead  language !  What 
was  this  gabble,  this  jargon,  all  about  him  in  the 
semi-darkness,  which  brought  to  him  only  an  elusive, 
meaningless,  but — as  it  seemed  to  him — sinister 
humming  and  hissing:  the  unfriendly  vibrations  of 
an  alien  swarm.  Why,  the  mere  look  of  everything 
was  odd,  and  hence — in  his  momentary,  hallucinated 
mood — forbidding!  Above,  gray  upon  gray,  a  faint 
silhouette  of  chimneyed  mansards;  then,  the  form  of 
the  windows ;  the  street  signs ;  the  street  lamps, — and, 
caught  by  their  rays,  eyes  and  teeth  that  gleamed 
briefly,  maliciously  out  at  him  from  beneath  furtive 
umbrellas!  The  very  smells  hanging  sourly  about 
him  in  that  sodden  atmosphere  added  to  his  panic; 
singly  he  might  have  placed  them,  but  in  their  special 
combination  they  were  unfamiliar,  and  so  held  a 
threat.  .  .  .  For  the  passing  fraction  of  a  second  he 
wanted  to  shut  his  eyes,  lower  his  head,  and  run — 
run  blindly,  anywhere — run  away! 

Jostled,  he  fell  back  against  a  wall  and  pressed 
himself  flat  against  it;  and,  as  he  felt  the  atavistic 
relief  of  its  contact  along  his  spine  (attack  from  the 
rear  impossible),  reason  returned  and  with  it  a 
private,  shamefaced  smile.  .  .  .  uWhy,  you  damn 
fool!"  he  murmured;  and  thought  prolonged  the 
half-amused,  half-disgusted  admonition,  "What  in 
time's  the  matter  with  you !  You  haven't  the  sense 
you  were  born  with!"  (Which  was  precisely,  how 
ever,  the  sense  that  had  played  these  pranks.) 

Just  then  he  caught  sight  of  what  he  hoped  might 
prove  an  empty  taxi;  it  was  coasting  along  slowly 
close  by  the  curb.  He  darted  forward. 

The  taxi  driver,  an  unusually  favorable  specimen 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  211 

of  a  doubtful  species,  was  certain  the  American  gen 
tleman  must  be  mistaken.  It  was  a  long  course  to 
the  Comediens  du  Marais  and  quite  unnecessary;  one 
could  obtain  tickets  at  a  Bureau  on  the  Avenue  de 
1'Opera,  close  at  hand.  But  at  last  Dunster's  vocab 
ulary  and  grasp  of  French  grammar  proved  equal 
to  the  strain  of  explanation.  He  desired  to  call  on 
a  member  of  the  company.  The  taxi  driver  re 
ceived  this  information  with  sympathy  and  respect. 
— "Ah,  m'sieu,  then,  has  an  appointment!"  He  even 
descended  from  his  wheel  and  opened  the  door  of 
his  cab  with  something  of  a  flourish.  Dunster, 
hoping  further  to  impress  him,  entered  the  cab  non 
chalantly,  sank  back  with  easy  indifference,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  light  a  cigarette.  .  .  . 

The  taxi  skirted  the  humped  mass  of  Garnier's 
masterpiece  and  charged  perilously  into  the  confused 
traffic  of  the  Boulevards.  But  Dunster  gave  little 
attention  to  the  dim-bright  panorama  of  streets. 
...  A  new,  deeper,  and  more  lasting  mood  of  won 
der  had  now  fallen  upon  him.  Life,  really,  was  too 
incredible.  Paris !  He  was  being  hurtled  through 
Paris  toward  Lilia — !  How  had  he  gotten  there? 
What  amazing  fortuities  had  produced  just  this  im 
probable — this  wholly  agitating — result?  Why  was 
he,  Dunster  Thorpe,  an  obscure  teacher  of  English 
literature,  racing  thus  madly  through  the  unknown 
— and  toward  the  unknown!  Lilia  Chenoworth — 
what  a  fantastic  name ! — and  only  a  name  to  him, 
after  all!  Who  was  she?  Some  heroine  of  fiction 
— of  eighteenth  century  romance?  Lilia  Chen  .  .  . 
Paris  had  vanished  now.  He  was  standing  by 
the  garden  door  of  his  bedroom  in  Alden,  his  arms 


212  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

clasped  about — about  a  slight,  tense  girl,  who  did 
not  yield  to  him,  yet  who  did  not  struggle  to  win 
free.  An  incredible  stillness,  an  unbreakable  silence 
enveloped  them.  .  .  .  Ass !  Why  had  he  let  her 
go?  Out  of  respect  for  her — ?  for  himself — ? 
Nonsense!  He  had  been  a  coward;  he  had  been 
glad  to  escape — to  be  allowed  to  escape.  Only,  he 
had  not  escaped;  he  would  never  escape.  No,  thank 
God,  he  would  never  escape !  No  matter  what  hap 
pened  now,  that  fact  in  itself  was  a  kind  of  torturing 
success.  But,  all  the  same,  it  would  serve  him  right 
if  she  should  look  at  him  now  in  a  certain  way  (he 
could  see  her!) — with  a  sort  of  quizzical  surprise. 
.  .  .  And  perhaps  as  she  dismissed  him,  thanked 
him  for  calling,  said  good-by  to  him — perhaps,  just 
as  he  turned  from  her — he  would  feel  that  she  had 
shrugged  her  shoulders.  .  .  .  God!  if  that  was  to  be 
the  way  of  it,  if  he  should  so  much  as  suspect  her  of 
doing  that,  he  would  simply  turn  back  and  take  her 
in  his  arms  again  and — this  time — make  her  under 
stand — yes,  make  her — make  her — ! 

The  last  expiring  pinch  of  his  cigarette  seared  his 
fingers  and  he  shook  it  from  him  with  an  oath  and  sat 
sharply  up  in  his  corner.  The  cab,  engulfed  in  a 
black  defile,  was  honking  at  some  invisible  obstruc 
tion.  Presently  it  made  a  sharp  dash  and  skidded 
round  a  blind  corner,  with  brakes  devastatingly  ap 
plied.  .  .  . 

It  was  more  like  an  accident  than  arrival.  How 
ever,  the  taxi-driver  was  opening  the  door  for  him 
with  an  ingratiating  smile ;  and  Dunster  at  last  made 
out  that  he  desired  to  know  whether  he  might  have 
the  happiness  to  wait  for  m'sieu.  It  would  be  diffi- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  213 

cult  for  the  American  gentleman  to  find  a  suitable 
taxi  in  this  quarter  when  he  needed  it.  Moreover, 
it  would  not  be  the  act  of  an  American  gentleman  to 
leave  a  poor  fellow  stranded  without  a  return  fare 
in  a  quarter  where  return  fares  did  not  precisely 
linger  on  every  corner.  A  somewhat  extravagant 
pourboire  soon  disposed  of  this  little  difficulty,  and 
Dunster  found  himself  standing  in  a  courtyard,  not 
too  well  lighted,  in  spite  of  a  small  electric  sign  above 
the  sensitively  carved  stone  portal  beside  him :  "Les 
Comediens  du  Marais." 

"After  all,"  thought  Dunster,  "I  was  a  fool  to 
get  rid  of  the  taxi.  Lilia  doesn't  live  here  of  course. 
I  suppose  her  father  doesn't  know  her  real  address. 
I  shall  have  to  ask  for  it  at  the  box-office." 

He  passed  through  the  portal  beneath  the  small 
electric  sign  and  entered  a  perfectly  proportioned 
foyer  of  moderate  size,  constructed  entirely  of  stone, 
but  giving  an  effect  of  lightness  and  beauty  which 
amazed  him.  An  aperture  in  the  right  wall,  framed 
by  delicate  carving  in  low  relief,  was  not  too  ob 
viously  the  ticket  seller's  window;  he  advanced  to 
it,  but  found  it  dark,  and  the  aperture  closed  by  a 
light  grille  of  wrought  iron.  "A  singular  theatre," 
he  reflected;  "there  must  be  somebody  about  some 
where  !"  And  he  took  a  bewildered  turn  or  two 
round  the  lovely  little  foyer,  feeling  wholly  at  a  loss 
and,  absurdly  enough,  rather  guilty  and  apprehen 
sive,  as  if  he  had  intruded  upon  some  forbidden 
place.  Indeed,  he  was  almost  at  the  point  of  re 
treating  hastily,  without  further  effort— of  running 
away,  back  to  his  hotel  room,  the  one  nook  in  this 
odd,  formidable  city  where  he  could  shut  himself 


214  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

in  and  defy  the  unknown — when  an  unbidden  mem 
ory  flashed  upon  him,  shamed  him,  and  stung  him  to 
action.  It  was  the  memory  of  that  evening  at  Dr. 
Hatred's,  when  he  and  Lilia  had  so  strangely  been 
left  alone  together  for  an  hour  and  more;  but  it 
was  specifically  the  memory  of  Lilia  herself  cross 
ing  the  room  and  without  a  second  of  hesitation 
firmly  pressing  the  button  of  an  electric  bell.  .  .  . 
Dunster  walked  at  once  to  the  only  interior  door  of 
the  foyer,  a  double  swinging  door  of  bronze  Spanish 
leather,  tried  it,  and  knew  he  had  only  to  push  it 
open.  He  passed  through  and  found  himself  at  the 
back  of  a  small  shadowy  auditorium,  and  facing  at 
no  great  distance  a  small  bare  stage  lighted  only  by 
a  bunch-light  which  stood  at  one  side  of  the  stage 
beside  a  plain  deal  table.  A  big  man  with  a  big  pale 
face,  dressed  wholly  in  black,  and  wearing  a  soft  black 
hat  with  a  wide  brim,  a  soft  low  collar,  a  flowing  black 
tie,  was  seated  at  this  table,  lounging  half  across  it  on 
his  elbows,  with  his  chin  in  his  hands.  He  was  speak 
ing  in  French,  volubly  but  quietly,  to  a  slim  girl  in 
white  who  stood  across  the  table  from  him,  half  lost 
in  shadow;  for  the  imposing  bulk  of  the  man  was 
cutting  off  from  her  the  direct  rays  of  the  bunch- 
light.  Dunster  could  not  catch  the  tenor  of  his  re 
marks.  Presently  the  man  pushed  himself  back 
from  the  table,  making  a  decisive  gesture  as  he  did 
so, — and  Lilia's  face  started  out  from  the  shadows, 
so  unexpectedly  that  Dunster  was  barely  able  to  sup 
press  a  cry.  He  had  forgotten  how  exquisite  she 
was!  Hardly  breathing,  he  stared  at  her — as  a 
hushed  devotee  might  stare  at  some  supernatural 
vision.  He  saw  that  her  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  215 

man's  eyes  with  a  rapt  attention.  For  a  second  only, 
however.  Then  her  whole  slight  body  became  fluid, 
expressive,  and  she  began  to  speak — reciting  some 
five  or  six  lines  of  what  Dunster  could  at  least  rec 
ognize  to  be  French  Alexandrine  verse.  But  the 
big  man  checked  her,  impatiently,  and  once  more 
shouldered  forward  across  the  table,  cutting  the  light 
from  her,  and  with  raised  finger  made  some  brief, 
high-pitched  staccato  comment.  Dunster,  with  in 
dignation,  saw  Lilia's  hands  open  before  him  with 
a  feeling  almost  of  appeal  for  mercy.  Then  she 
stepped  back  a  little,  as  if  to  collect  herself,  and 
began  the  lines  again  .  .  . 

"Ah!  enfin!  Ca  va  mieux,  cherie — n'est-ce  pas! 
Beaucoup  mieux- — /" 

Dunster  was  straining  his  ears  to  catch  at  the  sense 
of  the  big  man's  words.  He  had  risen  as  he  spoke 
them  and  had  gone  to  Lilia,  taking  her  hands  in  his. 
His  vast  shadow  engulfed  her.  .  .  .  "Damn  you! 
Can't  you  even  keep  your  fat  hands  off  her !"  Dun 
ster  muttered,  and  strode  rapidly  down  the  centre 
aisle. 

"Pardon,  monsieur — pardon!"  he  exclaimed,  in 
his  stiff,  heavily  accented  French.  uje  suis  un  ami  de 
Mile.  Chenoworth — un  ami  americain  .  .  .  Lilia! 
I'm  sorry  to  break  in  like  this !  I  know  I've  no  busi 
ness  to  ...  but  I  came  over  to  see  you — just  to  see 
you — and  I  didn't  know  how  else  to  find  you.  There 
was  no  one  about  outside,  and " 

"Dunster  Thorpe — ?"  she  interrupted  him  on  a 
tone  of  incredulous  wonder.  "Of  all  people — I" 

"I  know,  Lilia.    But  can't  you  give  me  five  or  ten 


216  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

minutes  alone   somewhere — so  I  can  tell  you — ex 
plain » 

She  burst  out  laughing  nervously,  but  there  was 
kindness  and  welcome,  too,  in  her  laughter.  "Let 
me  introduce  M.  Mondory,  our  director.  He  speaks 
English,  Dunster,  so  you  needn't  struggle  with  your 
French  again."  She  was  still  clinging  to  Mondory's 
hand  and  now  she  turned  to  him  brightly.  "This — 
of  all  unexpected  visitors — is  an  old  teacher  and 
friend  of  mine — from  America,  you  know!  Dr. 
Thorpe " 

The  great  Mondory  slightly  inclined  his  ponder 
ous  head  and  murmured,  UM.  le  docteur  T'orpe — 
charme !"  Then,  in  a  rapid  undertone,  to  Lilia : 
uAh,  the  Prince  at  last,  hein?  Are  you  going  to 
let  down  your  hair  to  him?  Have  I  wasted  my 
time?" 

Lilia  pushed  Mondory's  hand  from  her  with  a 
sudden  frown  and  stepped  forward.  "Do  climb  up! 
It's  so — funny — your  popping  out  of  the  darkness 
like  this!  I  can't  believe  it.  Are  you  really  real? 
There  !  jump  up  on  that  seat — !  You'll  forgive  him 
this  once,  won't  you,  Mondory?  .  .  .  That's  it! 
Look  out,  though!  .  .  .  Let  me  give  you  a  hand — !" 

Dunster  was  beside  her  now  on  the  stage.  He 
gripped  her  hand  hard  in  his  and  leaned  to  her. 
"I've  come  for  you.  I  shan't  let  you  go  this  time — 


ever." 


But  it  was  Lilia's  maddening,  remembered  shrug 
which  answered  him — answered  and  angered  him. 
He  dropped  her  hand. 

Lilia  turned  at  once  to  Mondory,  but  spoke  in 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  217 

English.  "I'm  sorry  I  didn't  please  you  to-day.  I 
will  to-morrow.  I  will.11 

"Ah?  Bon!  .  .  .  But  it  is  to-night  you  must 
please  me,"  Mondory  replied. 

Dunster  saw  Lilia  tremble.     uTo-night — ?" 

"But  certainly.  Fabrice  is  unwell.  You  must  play 
her  part  to-night.  No  nerves,  remember. — And 
perhaps  M.  le  docteur  T'orpe  will  oblige  us  by  at 
tending  your  debut?  Now  I  go.  Delight'  to  'ave 
met  you,  Monsieur.  Au  revoir." 

The  great  Mondory  turned  on  his  heel  and  made 
one  of  his  famous  quiet  exits — nature  itself,  said  the 
critics — which  was  assuredly  not  lacking  in  its 
effect. 

Lilia's  hands  went  to  her  throat;  her  face  now 
was  finely  drawn,  and  the  discreet  touches  of  rouge 
defined  themselves  with  a  merciless  precision.  She 
stared  at  Dunster  with  frightened  eyes. 

"Did  you  hear  him?"  she  almost  babbled.  "Do 
you  understand  ?  .  .  .  But  I  can't !  .  .  .  You  don't 
know  what  it  means — the  opportunity  to  play  here  I 
Oh— I  can't!" 

For  a  brief  second  two  warring  thoughts,  or  emo 
tions,  fought  it  out  in  Dunster's  breast.  "He's  let 
ting  her  play,  of  course,  because  he's  mad  about  her. 
He  sees  a  rival  in  me.  It's  his  highest  bid — and  he 
hopes  to  exact  his  price.  But  if  she  breaks  down 
now  that  will  end  it — !" 

There  was,  however,  a  finer  emotion,  and  for  once 
it  triumphed,  speaking  from  lips  and  heart. 

"Lilia  !  I've  never  seen  you  afraid  before.  Only, 
you're  not  afraid — and  there's  no  question  about 
your  playing.  All  that's  over  now,  isn't  it?  You're 


218  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

glad  of  the  chance — you've  always  wanted  it — you're 
ready  for  it — and  thank  God  I'm  here  to  see  you 
take  it,  and  the  public  and  critics  along  with  it. 
You'll  simply  gather  us  all  in,  you  know,  and  do 
what  you  please  with  us.  ...  Oh,  yes,  dear,  you'll 
do  it — and  he  knows  you'll  do  it  ...  Lilia ! — if 
you'd  only  give  me  the  right  to  ask  you  to  play  to 
night" —  (but  he  fumbled  awkwardly  over  the  clos 
ing  words) —  "to-night — somehow — specially — for 
me  .  .  ." 

As  he  spoke  the  terror  left  her  eyes;  her  face 
softened  and  bloomed  before  him. 

"Thanks,"  she  murmured,  "O  thank  you !  Bless 
you  for  coming  to  me — so  differently — just  now. 
It's  a  miracle — !" 

He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  she  clung  to  him. 

Someone — a  woman, — standing  unseen  in  the 
wings,  laughed  out  with  intention,  a  clear  calculated 
ripple  of  wounding  laughter.  With  a  gasp  of  dis 
may  Lilia  broke  from  Dunster's  arms,  and,  stopping 
for  not  even  a  word  of  explanation,  fled  off  through 
the  opposite  wings.  For  an  instant  Dunster  was  too 
astonished  to  pursue  her,  and  in  that  brief  interval 
of  hesitation  the  woman  who  had  laughed  was  beside 
him  and  had  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  219 


XIX 

"I  spik  Anglis'  ver'  good,  m'sieu.  .  .  .  You  are 
her  leaver — hein?  No — ?" 

The  half-light  about  them  may  have  favored  the 
illusion,  but  Dunster  felt  certain  at  once  that  he  had 
never  seen  anywhere  a  prettier  woman.  Pretty  was 
the  exact  word  for  her.  She  had  the  vaporous  pink 
and  blue  piquancy,  the  ethereal  sensuousness  (to  risk 
an  impossible  phrase),  of  some  nymph  on  a  fan 
painted  by  Boucher  or  Van  Loo. 

"Eet  ees  amusant,  no — ?  Zees  petite  novice — 
zees  leetle  Lilia — so  chaste — so — how  you  say  on 
Broadway,  m'sieu? — so  op-stage  I"  Again  that  clear 
calculated  ripple  of  laughter. 

Her  hand  still  touched,  lightly,  the  sleeve  of  Dun- 
ster's  coat. 

He  was  seriously  annoyed;  he  was  impatient  to 
follow  Lilia;  but  it  would  have  been  difficult  for 
Cato  the  Elder,  in  person,  to  be  immediately  curt  or 
boorish  to  such  an  apparition.  Moreover,  Dunster 
was  prompt  to  feel  what  was  due  his  self-esteem  as 
artist,  as  man  of  the  world;  he  wished  to  appear  in 
her  eyes  quite  sophisticated  enough  to  be  equal  to 
this,  or  any  other,  delicate  situation.  He  smiled 
down  at  her  with  a  touch  of  cynical  amusement  which 
he  hoped  (vainly)  might  strike  her  as  habitual. 

"Are  you  a  member  of  this  company,  made 
moiselle?" 

Her  voice  sharpened  a  little.     "You  not  know 


220  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"I  arrived  from  America  only  this  morning." 

"Ah I"  (with  open  relief).  "Bot  I  haf  play  also 
in  New  York.  Two  year  ago  I  haf'  play  zer — yes. 
M.  Forrest — yes — 'ee  'as  feature  me  in  a  vaudeville 
— a  farce,  not? — oh,  ver'  stoopeed — yes!  'Zee 
Lingerie  Girl' — you  not  see  'eem?"  Dunster  shook 
his  head.  "Vraiment!  Bot  everee-wan  'as  see  'eem! 
Ver'  populair — yes.  Suppose  to  be  ver'  naughtee. 
Bot  ver'  stoopeedf  Nozzing  'as  'appen  in  zees 
vaudeville!  Zee  police,  hein?  Zee  puritain!  Zee 
prrr-ude !  Always  in  your  countree,  hein,  zees — 
zees  sales  especes  de  .  .  . !"  And  the  rosebud  lips 
uttered  with  the  most  smiling  serenity  a  phrase 
filthy  enough  to  have  daunted  a  neo-realist,  and  far 
too  idiomatic  for  Dunster's  comprehension. 

He  continued  to  smile,  but  he  was  determined  now 
to  break  from  this  conversation.  Lilia  was  undoubt 
edly  waiting  for  him;  was  perhaps  within  earshot, 
wondering  why  he  permitted  himself  to  be  detained. 

"Mademoiselle,"  he  began  firmly,  "I  must  beg  you 
to  excuse  me.  I  came  all  the  way  from  America  to 
see  Miss  Chenoworth.  I  hope  to  take  her  back  with 
me,  you  understand " 

"Ah!  vraiment!  I  congratulate.  Elle  est  char- 
mante — tout  a  fait  charmante  ! — la  petite  Lilia  !  An' 
sly — a  leetle — no?  'Oo  would  'ave  suspec'?  .  .  . 
Ah!  ce  pauvre  Mondory! — 'ow  she  'ave  fool  'eem, 
no?  So  grrr-eat  an  artiste — so  beeg  a  babee!  Ah! 
poor  fel-low!" 

Dunster  checked  her  impatiently. 

"Really,  mademoiselle,  I  can't  stop  to  discuss  it 
with  you — whatever  it  is.  Miss  Chenoworth  is 
waiting  for  me." 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  221 

"Mees  Chen' wort' !  You  t'ink  so,  hein  ?  Per'aps. 
— You  are  so  ver'  reech,  no?" 

Dunster  laughed  out  his  denial.  "Hardly."  And 
he  thought  it  might  impress  this  Frenchwoman  fa 
vorably  to  add,  "I'm  a  poverty-stricken  poet,  you 
see."  He  understood  one  could  admit  that  sort 
of  thing  openly  in  Paris  without  making  oneself 
ridiculous. 

To  his  surprise  this  mixture  of  fan-nymph  and 
street-arab  beside  him  gave  forth  a  full-throated 
burst  of  laughter,  planting  hands  on  hips,  tilting  her 
chin  back,  yielding  herself  to  raucous  jubilation. 
"Po-etf  Zat  ees  good!  Po-et!  Et  vous  n'avez 
pas  le  sou  meme !  Alors !  Eet  ees  Mondory  I 
congratulate !"  And  with  the  lightest,  suddenest  of 
movements  she  patted  Dunster's  cheek.  "Ah,  mon 
cher!  No  wondair  she  was  confuse  w'en  I  'ave 
caught  her  in  your  arms !  Suppose  I  am  mechante  ? 
Suppose  I  am  go  to  Mondory  an'  say,  'Ah,  mon 
pauvre — la  nouvelle  poupee — elle  est  casseeP  .  .  . 
Vous  comprenez  ga,  peut-etre?  Zee  new  doll — she 
ees  broken?  Ah,  zees  petite  Lilia  She  know  ver' 
well — how  to  say — to  fethair  'er  nest."  And  she 
laughed  raucously  once  more.  "So  you  'ope  to  take 
'er  'ome  wiz  you !  Dieu ! — que  c'est  tordant,  ga ! — 
je  m'etouffe!" 

Dunster  was  too  angry  by  this  time  to  be  success 
fully  sarcastic,  but  he  made  a  supreme  effort  for  dig 
nity.  "Adieu,  mademoiselle.  It's  a  privilege,  of 
course,  to  have  amused  you."  He  started  away. 

Again  she  was  lightly  beside  him. 

"Good  luck — M.  le  Poete  sans  Sou!  Mais — eet 
ees  a  pretence,  hein,  zat  you  not  know  me?" 


222  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

"No,"  said  Dunster,  sharp  and  cold,  "I  haven't 
the  least  idea  who  you  are."  And  he  turned  his  back 
on  the  tormentor  and  walked  rapidly  off  through  the 
dusky  wings  in  the  direction  which  Lilia  had  taken. 

Fabrice  de  Silva  followed  his  departure  with  ma 
licious  eyes.  One  is  not  the  darling  of  all  Paris  for 
nothing.  The  American  Poet  without  a  Penny  would 
regret  his  rudeness;  her  shrug — which  was  not  in 
the  least  like  Lilia's — said  so  as  she  momentarily 
dismissed  him  and  walked  thoughtfully  to  her  dress 
ing-room.  She  had  merely  stopped  at  the  theatre 
to  give  an  order  to  her  maid  about  her  costume  for 
the  evening.  She  had  been  perhaps  the  least  little 
bit  tipsy  the  night  before  and  had,  that  very  morn 
ing,  telephoned  Mondory  that  she  couldn't  possibly 
play  to-night.  She  was  too  unwell.  But  this  was 
merely  a  veiled  protest  against  the  part  assigned  her. 
Fabrice  detested  that  part.  It  was  only  a  bit — not 
thirty  lines  in  all — in  a  new  one-act  fantasy  by  a  half- 
starved  and  fully  pock-marked  young  poet;  and  Fa 
brice  detested  it.  However,  it  was  a  sacred  rule  of 
Mondory's  that  there  is  no  part  in  an  accepted  play 
unworthy  of  being  perfectly  rendered,  and  to  pro 
test  against  Mondory's  assignment  of  parts  meant 
instant  dismissal.  Not  one  of  his  most  celebrated 
players  had  ever  dared,  during  the  past  years  of  his 
theatre's  fame,  to  refuse  a  role.  Fabrice  herself 
would  not  have  dared,  save  by  delicate  indirection; 
and  she  had  further  covered  her  tracks  by  telling 
Mondory  how  glad  she  was  that  Mile.  Landry,  her 
understudy,  would  at  last  have  a  chance  to  play.  It 
was  the  first  time  in  three  years  she  had  failed  him, 
and  she  hoped  he  would  forgive  her — for  once.  .  .  . 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  223 

But  Mondory  had  forgiven  her  far  too  easily.  In 
fact,  Mondory,  the  brute,  had  made  far  too  little 
fuss  about  it  altogether;  and  Fabrice  had  not  been 
pleased.  So,  after  all,  having  breakfasted  and 
sulked  and  turned  off  her  weeping  masseuse  for  im 
aginary  incompetence,  she  had  decided  to  play.  .  .  . 


XX 

But  on  reaching  her  dressing-room  Fabrice  made 
a  shocking  discovery :  she  was  not  to  be  permitted  to 
play  that  evening.  She  found  awaiting  her — in  ad 
dition  to  her  frightened  maid — Mile.  Landry,  her 
understudy,  in  a  state  of  tremulous  excitement  and 
tragic  tears.  And  what  she  at  last  learned  from 
Mile.  Landry  was,  unexpectedly,  this :  Mondory  had 
informed  Mile.  Landry  that  he  would  not  require 
her  services  for  the  evening;  he  had  definitely  re 
assigned  the  part  of  the  slave  girl,  Akeenah,  to  Mile. 
Chenoworth. 

There  are  certain  natural  phenomena,  earth 
quakes,  tornadoes,  and  the  like,  which  are  really  too 
difficult  to  describe;  the  meager  effect  produced  for 
a  possible  reader  is  not  worth  the  mental  and  emo 
tional  wear  and  tear  on  the  author.  And  so  now 
with  the  catastrophic  rage  of  Fabrice  de  Silva !  .  .  . 
Moreover,  her  language — or,  rather,  her  staccato 
succession  of  throaty  snarls  and  half-strangled 
shrieks  —  is  not  translatable ;  it  was  too  richly 
charged  from  a  gutter,  a  grand  egout,  which  has 
never  been  cleansed  since  the  days  of  Rabelais. 


224  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Nor  shall  a  brief  scene  which  followed  hard  upon, 
wherein  Fabrice,  having  sought  out  Mondory  in  his 
most  inviolable  sanctum,  rather  bettered  the  per 
formance  which  she  had  but  rehearsed  in  her  dress 
ing-room,  be  attempted  by  the  present  unambitious 
recorder.  Let  the  inevitable  result  suffice:  a  great 
director,  superbly  calm,  dismissing  a  great  artiste, 
no  longer  resembling  a  fan-nymph  by  Boucher, 
whom  at  the  moment  it  would  not  have  been  safe  to 
trust  with  any  destructive  weapon,  so  murderous  was 
her  passion ! 

One  further,  and  more  secret,  glimpse  of  Fabrice 
on  the  war-path  must,  however,  be  attempted. 

The  program  for  the  evening  was  made  up  of 
three  one-act  plays,  two  of  them  already  established 
in  the  repertoire  of  the  company;  the  third  and  last 
being  that  new  fantasy  by  the  half-starved,  pock 
marked  young  poet,  in  which  Lilia — as  fate  had  now 
decided — was  to  appear.  This  fantasy  in  verse  was 
a  delicate  blending  of  irony  and  lyric  daintiness, 
which  required  the  most  careful  handling,  being  a 
fabric  almost  too  finespun  of  gossamer  for  the  plas 
tic  stage.  Its  scene  was  laid  in  a  mythical  kingdom, 
east  of  the  sun,  west  of  the  moon;  or,  say,  some  for 
gotten  valley  folded  in  by  the  realms  of  Titania  and 
of  Prester  John.  "The  Hanging  Gardens  of  the  Pal 
ace  of  King  Koro" — such  was  the  exact  locale;  and 
Mondory,  never  happier  than  when  confronted  by 
such  a  problem,  had  himself  devised  every  detail  of 
the  setting  and  costumes — giving  them,  in  form  and 
color,  a  vaguely  Persian  feeling,  a  light,  clear  mag 
nificence,  rainbow-hued.  .  .  .  He  had  conceived, 
simply,  a  high,  an  exaggeratedly  high  retaining  wall 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  225 

of  cream-colored  stucco,  cutting  the  stage  starkly  at 
a  slight  angle  from  left  to  right;  down  the  face  of 
which  came,  from  some  imagined  upper  terrace,  a 
broad,  plain  flight  of  steps,  without  a  guard-railing; 
and  at  the  foot  of  this  flight  of  steps  stood  a  single 
dark  cypress,  its  muscled  trunk  springing  from  the 
terrace  below  the  wall — the  stage-level  itself,  which 
was  paved  with  dull  blue  tiles,  and  which  was  broken 
only  by  a  small  round  pool  wearing  a  single  wine-red 
lily  on  its  breast.  Nothing  could  have  stirred  the 
imagination  more  persistently  than  this  cunning  re 
straint.  One  felt  that  everywhere,  above,  below,  yet 
always  tantalizingly  beyond  one's  vision,  bloomed 
the  profusion  of  an  ineffable  loveliness.  .  .  .  Well, 
but  that  high,  steep  stair  along  the  wall,  that  stair 
without  a  railing — that  was  the  master-stroke !  On 
every  alternate  step,  motionless  against  the  cream- 
colored  wall,  would  stand  a  naked  Nubian,  coal- 
black,  shining  with  palm  oil;  each  with  a  vivid 
breech-clout,  a  vivid  turban;  each  holding  a  bared 
scimitar;  all  grave,  enigmatic — the  Eunuchs  of  the 
King.  But  only  the  feet  and  legs  of  the  topmost 
eunuch  would  be  seen  from  the  auditorium;  the  legs 
as  far  as  the  knee;  for  the  stair,  presumably,  and 
the  great  retaining  wall  soared  up  and  up  to  a  fan 
tastic,  a  vertiginous  height. 

It  was  to  him  who  would  that  night  be  the  second 
eunuch  below  the  topmost  eunuch  that  Fabrice  de 
Silva  presently  addressed  herself.  He  was  an  extra- 
man,  engaged  merely  for  this  special  performance; 
and  she  knew  him  well.  She  had,  in  fact,  sent  him 
to  Mondory  to  obtain  this  not  very  remunerative 
job.  Twelve  eunuchs  in  all  were  required;  and  they 


226  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

must  all  be  splendid  physical  specimens,  and  over  six 
feet  tall.  Such  men,  at  the  wages  offered,  were  not 
too  easy  to  obtain.  But  Fabrice,  when  Mondory 
had  first  mentioned  his  difficulty,  had  bethought  her 
of  one  man  who  would  answer.  He  was  a  young 
Algerian  tribesman,  formerly  in  the  Colonial  army, 
dismissed  thence  for  an  unknown  cause,  who  had 
found  his  way  to  Paris  at  last,  where  he  had  posed 
for  a  time  in  the  studios,  becoming  almost  famous 
for  his  beauty — until  the  lower  Bohemian  life  of  the 
eccentric  quarters  had  quietly  engulfed  and  destroyed 
him.  He  had  taken  to  drugs  and  drink  and  a  crim 
inal  way  of  life,  becoming  one  of  the  bad  boys  of 
Paris — an  apache  by  adoption.  Fabrice,  who  had 
known  him  in  better  days,  had  already  on  one  occa 
sion  since  his  decline  found  the  fellow  useful;  he 
had,  at  a  price,  thoroughly  chastised  for  her  a  for 
mer  admirer  who  had  taken  to  being  more  than  rude. 
She  had  thought  it  wise  to  retain  his  friendship — a 
weak  woman  was  so  often  at  a  disadvantage;  she 
knew  where  to  find  him;  and,  ignoring  dinner,  she 
went  directly  to  him  now. 

Her  trim  DeDion  landaulet  threaded  strange 
streets  off  the  Boulevard  du  Temple  and  stopped  a 
little  on  the  hither  side  of  a  small  drinking-shop, 
open  to  the  pavement,  and  crowded  at  this  hour 
with  artisans  in  baggy  corduroys.  She  instructed  her 
young  chauffeur,  in  his  neat,  black  uniform,  and  he 
left  her  with  an  undisguised  shrug;  it  was  evident 
that  he  did  not  relish  his  commission.  However, 
he  returned  presently,  unscathed,  with  Hussein,  a 
raffish  giant,  slouching  along  the  foul  pavement  at 
his  heels,  yet  towering  over  him  like  an  afreet — a 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  227 

somewhat  blowsy  and  degenerate  afreet,  it  must  be 
acknowledged.  And  Fabrice  de  Silva — outwardly 
once  more  the  faultless  fan-nymph  by  Boucher  — 
leaned  forth  from  the  window  of  her  landaulet  and 
greeted  Hussein  with  the  most  seductive  of  smiles. 
.  .  .  "Hussein,  my  child/*  she  began  unexpectedly, 
"let  me  hear  thee — sneeze  .  ." 


XXI 

Dunster,  as  it  happened,  was  not  again  to  see 
Lilia  before  the  evening  performance.  When  he 
had  left  his  tormentor,  Fabrice,  and  had  tardily  pur 
sued  Lilia  off  into  the  dusky  wings,  it  was  only  to 
find  himself  at  a  loss  in  a  dim  region  with  walls  of 
fire-brick,  against  which  were  stacked  "flats"  and 
other  bulkier  scenic  contrivances.  A  single  shut  iron 
door  in  the  lateral  fire-wall  offered  the  sole  possibil 
ity  of  escape  at  this  side  of  the  stage;  through  that 
door,  then,  Lilia  must  certainly  have  preceded  him. 
Dunster  tried  it,  pushed  it  open.  It  led  him  to  a 
lighted  passage,  with  a  door  at  the  farther  end,  and 
lined  on  either  side,  like  a  prison  gallery,  with  evenly 
spaced  iron  doors.  Summoning  all  his  persistence, 
he  called  Lilia's  name  several  times — not  loudly,  but 
as  loudly  as  he  dared,  lest  he  make  himself  too 
ridiculous.  An  old  man  in  shirt-sleeves,  with  a  tight 
black  cap  on  a  great  hairless  skull,  came  scrabbling 
ratlike  through  the  door  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
passage  and  challenged  him  in  a  shrill  falsetto.  Dun 
ster  was  startled — more  startled  than  he  later  cared 


228  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

to  admit  to  himself.  However,  the  old  man  proved 
merely  to  be  keeper  of  the  stage-door,  though  of  a 
suspicious  temper  like  all  his  fellows;  and  Dunster, 
in  his  embarrassment,  had  the  most  humiliating  diffi 
culty  in  making  himself  understood  or  explaining  his 
presence  in  the  corridor.  Indeed,  after  the  ratlike 
old  man  had  at  length  permitted  him  to  pass  out 
through  the  stage-door  into  a  sort  of  side-alley,  Dun 
ster  had  grave  doubts  whether  it  was  not  a  five-franc 
note,  rather  than  his  halting  phrases,  which  had  ac 
complished  even  so  much — or  so  little — for  him  as 
this!  The  truth  is,  it  had  seemed  simpler  to  Dun 
ster  to  make  a  fresh  start  and  find  his  way  round  to 
the  entrance-court  of  the  theatre,  where  a  second  ap 
pearance  might  bring  him  better  luck,  and  where  he 
could  at  least  account  for  his  presence  without  feel 
ing  an  utter  fool. 

It  was  raining  dismally  now,  and  the  deserted 
alley,  taken  in  the  direction  which  he  supposed  would 
lead  him  to  the  Rue  des  Francs  Bourgeois,  proved 
to  be  a  fetid  cut  de  sac.  Dunster  had  to  retrace  his 
steps,  and,  while  doing  so,  he  could  not  conceal  from 
himself  the  fact  that  he  was  a  good  deal  annoyed 
with  Lilia — annoyed  with  her  for  leaving  him  so  ab 
ruptly,  and  so  needlessly,  in  such  a  fix!  She  might 
at  least,  he  thought,  have  dropped  a  word  as  she  fled 
— where  to  go,  or  where  to  find  her,  or  wait  for  her. 
Didn't  she  realize  how  much  he  had  already  done 
for  her,  how  far  he  had  come  for  her !  Her  flight 
was  a  sudden  panic,  of  course — not  unnatural  under 
the  circumstances;  but — well — wasn't  the  manner  of 
it  a  little  thoughtless  of  him,  to  say  the  least!  The 
fetid  alley  had  now  led  him  into  another  narrow 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  229 

street,  and  so  into  a  perplexity  of  turnings.  Fully 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  had  passed  by  the  time  he  had 
again  discovered  the  arched  entrance  to  the  court 
yard  of  the  Comediens  du  Marais.  Damp,  in  per 
son  and  spirit,  he  hurried  across  the  courtyard,  only 
to  find  himself  checked  midway  by  some  obscure  im 
pulse  which  lifted  his  eyes — and  there  he  stood,  half 
puzzled  at  himself,  staring  up  toward  a  lighted  win 
dow  in  a  little  round  tower-like  excrescence  that 
clung,  snail-like,  within  one  of  the  interior  angles  of 
the  court.  As  he  stood  thus,  someone — a  girl,  he 
imagined — far  up  there  in  that  oddly  improbable 
little  tower  chamber,  passed  between  the  light  and 
his  eyes  and,  for  the  merest  instant,  was  vaguely  sil 
houetted  against  the  window.  And  the  passing  im 
pression  brought  swiftly,  yet  vaporously,  to  his  con 
sciousness  some  old  tale — a  floating  wisp  of  some 
thing  he  had  read  once,  or  had  been  told  when  he 
was  a  little  fellow  in — of  all  incongruous  spots! — 
Vanesburg,  Ohio.  Something,  wasn't  it,  about  a 
Princess  —  but  what  was  her  name  ?  —  a  Princess 
who  had  let  down  bright  hair  from  just  such  an 
absurd  little  tower-window — lowered  the  soft  flaxen 
weight  of  it  to  some  adventurous  Princeling  in  the 
courtyard,  that  he  might  defy  fate  and  climb  up  to 
her  and  perilously  claim  her.  .  .  .  Funny  thing! — 
such  a  tag-end  of  fairy  tale  drifting  back  to  him  at 
such  a  time  !  Funny  thing,  the  association  of  ideas ! 
Funny,  that  he  couldn't  recall  the  name  of  the  beau 
tiful  Princess!  .  .  .  rel — zel — Merribelle — ?  No 
— no.  .  .  .  And  then,  as  he  entered  once  more  the 
foyer  of  the  theatre,  he  wondered  if  by  any  chance 
that  might  have  been  Lilia  up  there — but  only  to 


230  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

dismiss  the  queer  notion,  with  a  smile,  as  irrelevant, 
a  fantastic  whimsy  born  of  the  unfamiliarity  of  his 
surroundings. 

Although  the  foyer  was  still  deserted,  the  window 
of  the  box-office  was  lighted  now;  was  ready  for 
business. 

Dunster  applied  there,  to  a  disdainful  young  man 
in  black,  with  coal-black  eyes,  a  pointed  coal-black 
moustache,  and  sleek  anthracitic  hair.  This  young 
man,  true  to  the  international  traditions  of  his  em 
ployment,  was  insufferable,  and  contrived  at  once, 
subtly,  to  express  his  total  contempt  for  the  person 
before  him.  It  was  clear  to  him  that  Dunster,  speak 
ing  French  with  difficulty,  was  at  his  mercy,  and  he 
toyed,  black-leopard-like,  with  his  victim.  Had  it 
not  been  for  the  grille  between  them,  Dunster  would 
joyously  have  throttled  him;  but  that  was  impossible. 
He  could  only  swallow  his  rage;  perhaps  the  least 
digestible  morsel  known  to  the  human  dietary.  He 
was,  then,  in  no  receptive  mood  for  Lilia's  brief 
note  which  the  coal-black  young  man  at  last  pushed 
through  the  bars  to  him,  with  a  twitch  of  moustache- 
tips  that  dismissed  Dunster  (in  the  phrase  of  an 
equally  insufferable  Teuton)  as  "the  last  mushroom 
on  the  dunghill  of  romanticism." 

The  envelope  thus  received  by  Dunster  contained 
two  tickets  for  the  evening  performance;  and  the 
following  scribbled  message : 

MY  DEAR — 

I  couldn't  face  her — /  won't  ask  forgiveness.  I'm 
not  responsible  to-night.  Mondory  insisted  on  two 
seats  for  you  and  asks  you,  and  whatever  friend  you 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  231 

bring  —  but  aren't  you  alone?  I  hope  so  —  to  sup 
per  with  him.  It's  a  great  honor  for  you — a  great 
nuisance  for  me.  I'll  be  there,  of  course  —  more 
dead  than  alive — but  I  didn't  want  it  to  happen  like 
that.  I'm  a  slave,  you  see.  Mondory's  word  is  my 
law.  Unless  I  fail  to-night — when  he'll  still  be  kind, 
but  done  with  me,  I  suppose.  But  I  won't  fail.  I 

couldn't  now — for  him — or  for,  you 

LILIA. 

"Supper — where?"  was  Dunster's  first  crabbed, 
instinctive  thought.  "How  am  /  to  know!  It  strikes 
me  Lilia's  so  absorbed  in  herself,  her  career,  she 
doesn't  even  see  my  end  of  it  at  all.  She  lets  me 
slip  into  one  awkward  situation  after  another."  For 
which  instinctive  reaction  (but  must  one  always  be 
charitable  to  one's  hero?)  it  is  probable  that  the 
black  leopard  of  the  box-office  was  largely  to  blame. 

It  is  somewhat  more  to  Dunster's  credit  that,  as 
he  read  the  scribbled  words  a  second  time,  he  saw 
only  Lilia;  saw  her  as  an  exquisite,  gallant  child, 
fighting  the  dark  forces  of  life  with  a  smile,  with  just 
that  remote  little  shrug  of  hers,  the  full  significance 
of  which  now  came  to  him  poignantly,  awakening  a 
passionate  tenderness — until  his  throat  tightened  and 
there  were  tears  in  his  eyes.  Well;  one  thing  at 
least  was  settled;  she  would  no  longer  fight  alone. 
Her  battle  was  his  now,  and  they  would  win  it,  ulti 
mately,  together. 

But  is  it  to  his  credit,  or  the  reverse,  that  a  third 
reading  of  the  note  brought  to  him  a  pang  of  unrea 
soning  jealousy?  "I'm  a  slave,  you  see.  Mondory's 
word  is  my  law " 

What  did  Lilia  mean  by  that? 


232  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Dunster  well  knew,  even  as  he  asked  the  question, 
that  Lilia  meant  by  it  nothing  he  did  not  already  un 
derstand.  Yet  he  could  not  at  once  dismiss  the  mat 
ter.  He  asked  himself  that  question  again  and 
again  as  he  returned — slowly,  in  a  lopsided  fiacre, 
and  without  eyes  for  the  new  and  strange  about  him 
— to  his  hotel.  It  was  not  that  the  question  tortured 
him;  no:  but,  when  a  supposedly  sound  tooth  first 
begins  to  grumble  a  little — well,  it  was  just  like  that. 
He  was  anxiously  aware  of  the  question's  existence. 

It  was  past  seven  when  he  reached  his  hotel,  but 
there  was  still  plenty  of  time  for  him  to  dress  and 
get  a  bite  of  dinner.  The  performance  at  the 
Comediens  du  Marais  would  not  begin  until  nine. 
...  As  for  his  second  ticket,  he  would  simply  turn 
it  in  at  the  box-office  when  he  got  back  to  the  theatre. 
Frank  Gilman  might  be  glad  to  use  it,  of  course ;  but 
— on  the  whole  .  .  . 

XII 

Lilia  to  Ruth :  a  Postscript. 

RUTH  DEAR: 

For  the  past  three  weeks  I've  been  writing  you 
a  journal-letter — I'm  sending  it  along  with  this,  but 
it's  of  no  consequence  if  you  read  this  first, — trying 
to  tell  you  of  my  life  here  in  this  new  ugly-beautiful 
world,  my  world  I  think  now  for  ever  and  ever. 
In  just  half  an  hour  I  must  go  down  to  my  dressing- 
room  and  begin  making-up  for  my  first  professional 
appearance.  Writing  you  will  steady  me,  meanwhile 
— but  it  always  steadies  me.  Only  it  does  more — 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  233 

so  much  more  than  I  can  say!  How  can  you  look  so 
frail,  Ruth,  and  yet  be  such  a  tower  of  strength — to 
me — to  everyone  who  really  knows  you?  Dearest, 
thank  heaven  I  believe  in  souls  —  if  I  didn't  I 
couldn't  understand  you  at  all,  even  if  it  puzzles  me 
so  that  you  don't  believe  in  souls  yourself.  When 
you're  all  that,  I  mean — nothing  else  but  that!  If 
you'd  only  believe  in  yourself,  Ruth,  you'd  believe  in 
everything  worth  believing  in.  And  will  you  please 
feel  that  I'm  giving  you  a  great  big  bear-hug  this 
very  minute?  I  do  love  you 

/  know  you're  smiling  a  little.  I  know  you 
know  what  a  strung-up,  sentimental  state  I'm  in, 
writing  like  this — what  a  palpitating  idiot  I  am!  I 
can't  help  it,  Ruth. — Did  you  send  him  over  to 
me?  Somehow  I  think  you  did.  Well,  if  you  did, 
you  got  him  here  just  in  time.  Except  that  he'll  want 
me  to  marry  him,  I  suppose — and  I  can't  now,  not 
yet.  I've  something  to  do  first,  something  I  must 
do.  I  was  born  to  do  it,  and  I'm  just  beginning.  Be 
ginning  to-night —  Ruth,  he'll  have  to  go  home  and 
do  his  own  work  and  wait  for  me,  if  he  cares  to  wait. 
But  I  think  he  will.  I  know  he  will.  I  believe  in  him 
at  last — for  the  first  time.  But —  [This  "but"  was 
crossed  out,  however,  by  a  sharp  stroke  of  the  pen, 
which  ended  in  a  blotted  smudge.] 

No,  I  won't  question  anything —  He  gave  me 
courage  to-day,  when  I  needed  it  most. 

Ruth,  I  believe  it's  all  going  to  be  as  it  should  be. 
I'm  in  a  believing  mood — hardly  touching  earth.  I 
feel  as  if  nothing  could  go  wrong 

Oh — am  I  just  an  ecstatic  fool!  I'm  afraid  so. 
I've  never  gushed  like  this  before,  and  I  couldn't 


234  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

even  now  to  anyone  but  you — and  not  even  to  you  if 
you  were  sitting  here  with  me. 

Ruth,  I'm  in  my  "Tower  Chamber"—!  You'll 
understand  that,  when  you  read  the  rest  of  my  let 
ter — or  if  you've  read  it  first.  But,  you  see,  one  has 
to  be  some  kind  of  an  imprisoned  Princess  to  have 
any  real  right  to  a  Tower  Chamber.  Well,  I  am 
— one  kind.  I  feel  like  a  Princess  to-night — even  if 
I  am  going  to  play  a  slave-girl.  But  I  expect  they're 
the  same  thing,  really — for  there's  something  I  can't 
escape  from — and  can't  express.  If  a  nun,  a  "be 
lieving"  nun,  falls  in  love  and  runs  away  from  her 
convent  with  her  lover,  do  you  suppose  she  ever 
really  escapes  from — from  "what?"  I  don't  know. 
I'm  too  stupid  to  think  it  out.  But  I've  never  thought 
anything  out — /  can't.  I  can  only  live  things  out, 
as  they  come —  Or  else  simply  leave  them,  go  away. 
Time's  up,  Ruth  dear.  Bless  you — you  and  Dun- 
ster.  I'm  not  a  bit  afraid  now.  Do  you  know,  I've 
the  funniest  conviction  that  when  I  first  step  out  on 
the  stage  to-night  it  will  feel  like  coming  home. 
That's  a  feeling  I've  never  had,  Ruth — coming 
home 

Well,  I'm  happy • 

Your  L. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  235 


XXIII 

Lilia,  waited  on  by  Frangoise,  had  supped  very 
lightly  in  her  room;  but  just  before  doing  so,  she 
had  gone  down  to  the  small,  bare  dressing-room  as 
signed  her  and  had  made  certain  necessary  arrange 
ments.  She  was  really  astonished  by  her  own  cool 
ness,  although  she  well  knew  that  a  deep  excitement 
possessed  her,  a  simmering  tranquillity.  What  she 
had  feared  a  little  was  too  long  a  period  of  waiting, 
but  the  postscript  to  Ruth  had  filled  in  the  interval 
she  had  dreaded  most.  And  now  she  was  ready,  she 
was  even  eager  for  what  no  longer  seemed  to  her  an 
ordeal.  Her  eyes  were  luminous  and  serene. 

When  she  again  reached  the  dressing-room  she 
found  in  possession  of  it  a  middle-aged  woman  whom 
she  had  never  seen  before :  a  fat,  gross  creature  with, 
however,  a  kindly  enough  twinkle  in  her  heavily 
pouched  eyes.  This  intruder  at  once  made  herself 
known  as  Mme.  d'Albert,  and  explained  that  the 
great  Mondory,  in  person,  had  only  two  hours  ago 
reached  her  by  telephone  and  had  requested  her,  as  a 
special  favor  to  him,  to  take  Mile.  Chenowort'  under 
her  wing  for  the  evening  and  see  that  all  went  well 
with  her.  "I  used  to  be  mistress  of  the  wardrobe 
here,"  she  continued  with  a  purring  volubility;  "but 
then  I  was  a  widow.  It  was  before  I  married  M. 
d'Albert,  who  supplies  electrical  devices  to  many  of 
our  leading  theatres.  Naturally,  I  now  devote  myself 
to  his  little  affairs;  but  ah,  mademoiselle,  I  have  rest 
less  evenings.  But  restless,  I  tell  you !  I  miss  the  at 
mosphere  of  the  stage;  it  has  been  my  life.  You 


236  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

must  forgive  me,  cherie,  if  I  envy  you — so  young,  so 
exquisite,  at  the  threshold  of  your  career !  Ah,  yes, 
but  you  will  have  a  career — that  goes  without  saying. 
One  has  not  won  the  favor  of  this  good  Mondory 
for  nothing,  heinf  So  great  an  artist!" 

And  so  the  good-humored,  fleshly  creature  bab 
bled  on.  Meanwhile  her  fat,  efficient  hands  were  not 
idle.  Cumbrous,  yet  deft,  she  moved  about  the  little 
room,  laying  out  Lilia's  dressing-gown  and  her  cos 
tume,  a  slight  silken  tunic  of  apple-green  shot  through 
with  gold;  arranging  the  material  and  implements 
for  her  make-up  on  a  wooden  shelf  below  the  mir 
ror;  taking  upon  herself,  in  short,  all  the  duties  of 
a  highly  trained  maid.  If  Lilia  had  been  a  world- 
famous  star  she  could  not  have  been  more  skilfully 
served. 

"Ought  you  to  do  all  this  for  me  ?"  asked  Lilia,  a 
trifle  bewildered.  "When  I  learned  I  was  to  play 
to-night  it  was  too  late  to  think  of  engaging  anyone. 
Besides,  I  can't  afford  to  be  so  luxurious.  It's  true, 
though,  that  Mme.  Cornells,  who  isn't  playing,  was 
good  enough  to  offer  to  lend  me  her  maid " 

"Yes;  she  came — but  I  sent  her  away.  I  prefer  it 
like  this.  So  much  depends  on  the  costume,  cherie 
— how  it  is  worn.  And  the  make-up,  too,  that  is 
very  important.  I  have  seen  more  than  one  debut 
spoiled  by  too  much  red  or  white.  Oh,  but  I  assure 
you.  .  .  .  How  fortunate,  by  the  way,  that  you 
should  have  ordered  a  costume  in  advance!" 

"Mondory  insisted  on  that  two  weeks  ago." 

"Ah ! — then  he  intended  all  along  you  should  play 
this  part.  Good — good!" 

"But  that  can't  be  true!"  exclaimed  Lilia.     "If 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  237 

Mile,  de  Silva  hadn't  been  feeling  indisposed —  ? 
Why,  she  telephoned  only  this  morning,  you  know, 
that  she  would  prefer  not  to  play." 

Mme.  d' Albert  chuckled  deeply,  a  contralto  rou 
lade.  "So  much  the  simpler,  then,  for  Mondory, 
my  little  cabbage !  He  has  great  luck,  the  good 
man.  But  I  know  him  too  well.  If  he  meant  you 
to  play — bah !  it  isn't  that  minx,  Fabrice,  who  would 
have  stopped  him.  He  would  take  a  part  from  her 
as  from  another — yes,  at  the  last  minute,  too !  He's 
afraid  of  no  one.  Why  should  he  be,  in  his  posi 
tion —  ?  It's  well  known  he  thinks  only  of  what  is 
best  for  his  plays.  .  .  .  Ah,  I  felicitate  you,  cherie. 
If  Mondory  believes  in  you,  your  battle  is  won  in 
advance.  .  .  .  But  you  must  take  care,  all  the  same." 

"Take  care—?" 

"But  yes — assuredly.  It  isn't  only  yourself  you 
must  watch,  either.  For  example !  Suppose  that  to 
night  you  make  an  impression — that  arrives  now  and 
then,  not?  Very  well!  Do  you  think  Fabrice  will 
love  you  for  that,  hein?  One  must  think  of  these  lit 
tle  things,  you  see — keep  one's  eyes  open.  If  you 
begin  to  be  known,  Fabrice  will  do  everything  in  her 
power  to  injure  you — and  not  only  Fabrice.  Ah! 
the  life  of  an  artiste — it  isn't  all  roses,  I  tell  you! 
She  must  fight  for  every  inch,  and  often  with  teeth 
and  claws,  like  a  tigress — a  veritable  tigress.  But 
with  Mondory  behind  you  as  protector — pouff 
That  simplifies  matters.  .  .  .  And  at  his  age  you 
have  not  so  much  to  fear.  You  can  easily  hold  him, 
cherie,  with  a  little  tact,  isn't  it  true  ?  You  can  make 
him  eat  cake,  and  the  crumbs,  too,  from  your  pretty 
hands." 


238  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

As  she  paused  in  her  chatter,  she  slipped  over 
Lilia's  bared  shoulders  a  simple,  quaintly  cut  dress 
ing-gown  of  dull  green  China  silk.  Lilia  quietly 
thanked  her,  then  sank  down  upon  the  chair  before 
the  mirror  with  a  sigh.  It  would  be  useless,  she  well 
knew,  for  her  to  protest  to  this  good,  fleshly  Mme. 
d' Albert  against  the  interpretation  she  placed  upon 
her  relations  with  Mondory.  If  she  did  so,  Mme. 
d' Albert  would  be  polite,  would  say  nothing  further 
— to  her;  but  she  would  not  be  able  to  change  her 
opinion.  So  much,  in  even  so  brief  an  apprentice 
ship,  Lilia  had  learned  now,  once  for  all.  There 
were  certain  situations  which,  in  this  singular  world 
she  had  entered,  were  taken  for  granted;  and  that 
was  the  end  of  it.  No  one  seemed  to  think  the  worse 
of  her;  on  the  contrary,  they  seemed,  rather,  to  envy 
her  luck,  or  to  admire  her  successful  audacity.  But 
it  was  ugly,  all  the  same — ugly — ugly !  Why,  it  was 
just  as  if  she  were  playing  a  game  with  dishonest 
competitors,  who  were  quite  ready  to  applaud  her 
for  cheating,  if  only  she  could  manage  it  cleverly 
enough  to  score.  In  such  company  the  mere  fact  of 
scoring  at  all  was  an  admission  of  fellowship  in  guilt. 
And  those  at  the  top,  the  leaders,  were,  by  implica 
tion,  the  biggest  rascals.  .  .  .  Oh,  well;  what  did  it 
matter?  She  must  take  this  special  world  as  she 
found  it — and  perhaps,  the  sudden  thought  struck 
her,  it  wasn't  so  different  from  the  world  at  large, 
after  all;  she  must  regard  it  as  a  necessary,  although 
imperfect,  medium,  bring  to  it  her  own  vision,  and 
give  through  it  (or  even  in  spite  of  it)  whatever  she 
had  to  give.  And  she  would  not  be  quite  alone.  To 
begin  with,  Mondory  would  understand — and  Ruth, 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  239 

— and  Dunster — ?  Oh,  yes!  yes!  It  made  her  heart 
beat  more  quickly,  it  brought  a  swift  suffusion  of  life 
and  joy  to  feel  now,  beyond  possibility  of  question, 
that  Dunster  would  understand.  .  .  . 

Meanwhile,  Mme.  d' Albert  had  loosened  Lilia's 
hair,  with  many  profanely  pious  ejaculations  of  won 
der  and  delight.  The  good  woman  was  in  ecstasies 
over  its  length,  its  fineness,  the  warm  living  glow  of 
it!  Lilia  must  let  it  flow  unrestrained  down  her  back, 
and  a  careless  strand  or  so  over  one  bared  shoulder. 
A  slave-girl — the  part  would  permit  of  that;  nat 
urally!  And  Mme.  d' Albert  predicted  for  Lilia's 
unbound  hair  an  independent  sensation.  Her  voice 
took  on  solemn  tones,  almost  a  quaver  of  awe.  "They 
will  mention  it  in  the  Press !" 

"All  the  same,  it's  a  pity,"  she  added,  "that  your 
shoulders  and  arms — the  neck,  too — are  still  so  thin. 
Et  la  poitrine — ah,  mon  Dieu !  You  are  like  a  boy, 
an  entirely  little  boy !  But  happily  for  you,  it's  bet 
ter  to  be  too  thin  than  too  fat  nowadays.  With  a 
little  discretion  in  the  draperies — yes,  we  shall  man 
age.  Still — for  a  slave-girl — one  would  prefer.  .  .  . 
However !  The  hair  is  marvellous — marvellous !  A 
feast  in  itself!  Only,  what  one  fears  for  you,  a  tiny 
bit,  cherie,  is  a  lack  of  temperament — le  diable  dans 
le  corps.  Tres  important!  .  .  .  Fabrice  now  .  .  ." 

Lilia  answered  her  with  a  disarming  smile. 

"Yes;  but  Fabrice  would  exploit  herself.  That's 
what  Mondory  feared,  Mme.  d' Albert.  You  see, 
this  play  is  a  sort  of  revery,  a  poet's  day-dream — 
and  the  web  is  so  delicate,  so  easily  broken.  .  .  . 
Fabrice  doesn't  appreciate  it;  she  has  so  little  im 
agination — almost  none,  I  think.  .  .  .  And  may  I 


240  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

tell  you  something  more  ?  My  flat  chest  won't  damn 
me,  and  my  long  hair  won't  save  me.  Indeed,  if  the 
Press  even  mentions  my  hair,  I  shall  know  I  have 
failed.  .  .  .  But  Fabrice  wouldn't  understand  that, 
do  you  think?" 

Nor  did  Mme.  d' Albert  understand  it.  In  spite 
of  Lilia's  disarming  smile  she  was  a  little  ruffled. 
This  child,  after  all — a  novice!  Whereas  Fabrice 
de  Silva — ! 

"Good,  good!"  she  muttered.  "I  congratulate 
you  on  your  assurance,  cherie.  You're  a  cool  one. 
.  .  .  But,  after  all,  a  word  or  so  of  advice  from  an 
experienced  woman — that  does  no  harm,  I  hope !" 

"Ah,  please  don't  be  annoyed,  dear  Mme.  d' Al 
bert!  You  are  quite  right.  It  will  do  me  no  harm 
at  all,"  said  Lilia. 

It  took  Mme.  d' Albert  a  long  while  to  transform 
Lilia,  to  her  satisfaction,  into  Akeenah,  the  beauti 
ful  slave-girl;  for  while  the  costume  was  simplicity 
itself,  a  mere  knee-length  slip  of  vivid  silk  with  a 
loose  hip-girdle  of  linked  and  variegated  jade,  the 
make-up  was  tedious  and  difficult.  The  bared  legs 
and  arms,  the  feet,  the  hands,  the  throat,  the  shoul 
ders,  had  to  be  given  just  the  soft,  even,  amber  tone 
which  a  child  of  the  desert  who  had  been  cherished 
delicately  in  the  palace  of  a  king  might  be  supposed 
to  have  retained.  But  at  last  there  was  nothing  fur 
ther  to  be  done ;  not  another  touch  that  could  wisely 
be  added;  and  Mme.  d' Albert  stepped  back  with  a 
triumphant  sweep  of  arms  and  a  deep  dramatic 
breath:— "Voila—l" 

Lilia  was  surveying  herself  thoughtfully  in  the 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  241 

mirror.  "Yes,"  she  said  quietly,  "thank  you.  It's 
— perfect.  I  couldn't  have  managed  it  without  you. 
I  see  that  now.  .  .  .  Of  course,  my  eyes  are  all 
wrong — they  should  be  big  and  soft  and  expression 
less  ;  the  eyes  of  a  gazelle.  But  God  didn't  make  me 
a  gazelle!"  Her  eyes  encountered  Mme.  d' Albert's 
in  the  mirror,  and  she  kissed  finger  tips  to  her  with 
the  slow  grace  of  a  langour  that  was  Akeenah's,  not 
her  own.  "But  I  begin  to  feel  like  a  gazelle — that's 
the  important  thing, — a  tame,  pampered,  lazy  ga 
zelle  in  a  dim  cypress  garden.  I've  been  feeding  on 
sweetmeats;  the  young  king  has  been  feeding  me  by 
a  lily  pool.  The  air  is  warm  and  still  and  sleepy 
with  perfume.  ...  I  have  no  soul."  And  she 
rather  swayed  than  turned  from  the  mirror,  bal 
ancing  on  her  hips  with  that  slight  rolling  motion  of 
the  torso  which  is  the  East  itself.  The  enchantment 
was  upon  her.  She  was  no  longer  Lilia  Chenoworth. 

Mme.  d' Albert  clasped  fat  hands,  and  stood  with 
hanging  jaw,,  stupid  with  amazement.  Lilia  burst 
out  laughing  and  sank  down  on  a  chair,  relaxed  and 
content  The  enchantment  was  communicable,  then; 
even  here  in  this  stuffy  dressing-room  and  to  this  dull 
clay.  It  would  work — ! 

But  she  had  always  known  that.  It  seemed  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 


242  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 


XXIV 

While  Lilia's  part  in  this  little  play — "The  King 
Decides"  (even  the  title,  as  we  shall  see,  being  grace 
fully  ironic) — was  in  a  sense  a  minor  one,  it  was  so 
placed  that  it  provided  the  turning  point,  the  cli 
mactic  moments,  of  the  perhaps  too  slight  action 
involved. 

Koro  the  King,  young  inheritor  of  a  great  but 
moribund  empire,  is  a  minor  poet  who  cares  noth 
ing  for  affairs  of  state.  He  is  bored  by  his  respon 
sibilities  and  evades  them.  Shut  from  the  world  in 
his  hanging-gardens,  he  lives  the  life  of  an  artistic 
voluptuary. 

But  now  the  safety  of  his  empire  is  threatened  by 
a  greater,  a  rising,  empire — a  cold,  white,  implacable 
empire  to  the  north,  whose  ruler  is  a  woman,  Dag- 
mar  the  Undefeated.  This  Dagmar,  by  report,  is  a 
self-righteous  Amazon,  high-minded,  ambitious,  and 
distressingly  efficient.  Dagmar  desires  to  conquer 
the  known  world  and  then  reform  it;  she  has  already 
brought  most  of  it  under  her  sway.  However,  that 
great  decadent  empire  to  the  south,  the  empire  of 
Koro  the  King,  has  still  to  fall  into  her  hands.  She 
could  easily  take  it  by  the  sword;  but  she  is  young 
and  unmarried;  and  she  is  aware  that  Koro  the  King 
is  young  and  unmarried,  too.  Moreover,  she  has 
heard  that  he  is  very  handsome  and  very  vicious,  and 
she  finds  herself  longing  to  be  the  means  of  bringing 
him  to  a  better  way  of  life.  Her  ministers  suggest 
an  alliance  as  the  easiest  method  for  benevolent 
assimilation. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  243 

The  ministers  of  Koro  the  King  have  been  ap 
proached,  and  knowing  resistance  to  Dagmar  the 
Undefeated  would  be  useless  they  have  advised  Koro 
to  submit  to  his  fate.  "I  must  see  her  first,"  answers 
Koro,  indifferently.  So  it  is  arranged,  after  some 
diplomatic  difficulties,  that  Dagmar  the  Undefeated 
shall  visit  the  King. 

All  this  we  learn,  wittily  enough,  with  much  pleas 
ant  innuendo,  from  certain  male  and  female  parasites 
of  Koro  the  King,  who  are  loafing  about  one  of  the 
terraces  of  his  hanging-gardens — a  method  of  expo 
sition  which  set  Mondory's  teeth  on  edge ;  yet  he  for 
gave  it,  this  once,  because  of  its  incidental  graces, 
and  because  of  what  was  to  follow.  For  the  longer 
he  worked  over  this  trifling  play  the  better  he  liked 
it;  and  it  was  one  of  his  fixed  principles  never  to  re 
construct  an  author's  scenes,  nor  to  cut  or  alter  his 
lines.  If  a  play  could  not  be  made  to  play  as  writ 
ten,  it  was  not  for  Mondory. 

Presently  Koro  the  King,  tranced  in  a  luxurious 
melancholy,  enters  with  his  favorite  flute-player  and 
goes  to  the  lily  pool.  And  there,  in  silence,  he  feeds 
his  goldfish  and  listlessly  endures  the  mournful 
strains  of  his  flute-player. 

A  messenger  comes.  Dagmar  the  Undefeated  has 
arrived,  with  all  her  suite,  and  is  awaiting  Koro  the 
King  in  the  throne-room  of  the  palace.  "I  dislike 
the  throne-room,"  replies  Koro.  "My  poor  father's 
taste  was  execrable.  Bring  Dagmar  the  Undefeated 
to  me  here." 

The  messenger  trembles — but  departs. 

The  flute-player  resumes  his  mournful  warbling. 


244  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

The  parasites,  male  and  female,  fidget  and  ex 
change  sophisticated  glances. 

Koro  the  King  sighs — and  turns  again  to  his  gold 
fish. 

A  second  messenger  crawls  in  on  his  belly,  sweat 
ing  with  anguish. 

Dagmar  the  Undefeated  has  resented  the  King's 
message  as  an  insult,  a  challenge  to  battle,  and  has 
departed  with  all  her  suite. 

"Was  she  a  pretty  woman  ?"  asks  the  King. 

The  second  messenger  takes  heart.  "She  is — dif 
ferent — your  Majesty.  .  .  .  She  is  tall  and  white 
and  massive,  with  eyes  like  steel.  Her  wrath  was 
terrible  to  look  upon!" 

"Then  how  fortunate  I  am  not  to  have  seen  it," 
remarks  the  King. 

And  now  his  aged  ministers,  tremulous  with  ap 
prehension,  totter  in  and  prostrate  themselves  be 
fore  Koro  the  King,  surrounding  the  lily  pool  with 
their  humped,  servile  backs.  All  is  lost !  Unless — 
And  the  Grand  Vizier  of  Koro  the  King  finds  breath 
and  beseeches  this  Son  of  the  Moon  and  Stars  to 
pursue  Dagmar  the  Undefeated — pursue  her,  over 
take  her,  apologize  for  his  rudeness! — although  it 
may  even  so  be  too  late.  For  no  soldiers  can  stand 
against  the  number  and  strength  of  her  soldiers. 

But  Koro  the  King  wearily  smiles.  It  would  be 
too  fatiguing.  And  besides,  he  has  no  wish  to  marry, 
even  for  political  reasons.  "Then,  too,  I  have 
heard,"  he  adds,  "that  this  Dagmar  has  no  ear  for 
music,  no  love  for  the  harmony  of  verse,  and  never 
drinks  wine " 

"That  is  true,  your  Majesty.    But  she  will  destroy 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  245 

your  people;  she  will  raze  the  walls  of  your  palace 
and  capture  your  sacred  person;  she  will  bind  you 
with  chains.  For  her  wrath  was  terrible  to  look 
upon!" 

"Tall  —  white  —  massive  —  with  eyes  like  steel. 
.  .  .  I  have  never  seen  a  woman  like  that,"  muses 
Koro  the  King,  with  a  certain  wistfulness.  Then  he 
shrugs  his  shoulders.  "My  lords!  I  have  only  this 
morning  written  a  new  poem.  Would  you  like  to 
hear  it  ?  It  is  a  lament  to  Akeenah.  It  is  in  praise 
of  Akeenah." 

The  groans  of  the  aged  ministers  echo  against  the 
high  parapet-wall  of  the  garden.  The  parasites  of 
Koro  the  King  whisper  together  and  exchange 
sophisticated  glances.  Only  the  Eunuchs  of  the 
King,  motionless  on  the  mounting  stair,  are  silent. 

Koro  the  King  smiles  sadly,  and  softly  claps  his 
hands.  "Bring  me  Akeenah,"  he  murmurs.  ...  A 
slave  departs,  running  swiftly  on  hands  and  feet,  up 
the  high,  straight  stair  of  the  parapet-wall. 

Then  Koro  the  King  stands  by  the  lily  pool  and 
recites  his  despairing  verses  in  praise  of  Akeenah. 
(These  verses  are  beautiful.) 

As  he  concludes  them,  the  slave-girl  appears  from 
the  unseen  terrace,  above.  She  descends  the  long 
stair,  graceful,  indifferent,  with  slightly  swaying  hips. 
She  does  not  speak. 

At  the  foot  of  the  stair  Koro,  the  young  King, 
meets  her  and  takes  her  by  the  hand.  He  leads  her 
across  toward  the  hump-backed  ministers  and  the 
Grand  Vizier. 

"Behold  my  true  conqueror,"  says  Koro  the  King. 
"Queen  Dagmar  may  imperil  my  empire — which  is 


246  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

nothing.  But  Akeenah  imperils  my  self-esteem  — 
which  is  everything!  I  love  her — and  she  does  not 
love  me.  Is  it  not  so,  Akeenah?" 

"Am  I  not  your  Majesty's  slave?"  answers  Akee 
nah. 

"But  I  know  you  do  not  love  me,  Akeenah.  For 
even  now  my  hand  trembles  on  yours;  but  yours  does 
not  tremble  in  mine.  Do  you  love  me,  Akeenah?" 

Akeenah  is  silent. 

"Speak,  insolent  one !"  quavers  the  Grand  Vizier. 
"Speak — if  once  only !  Then  let  us  have  done  with 
words.  For  the  empire  crumbles !  Inform  the  Son 
of  the  Moon  and  Stars  that  you  love  him,  madly — 
and  you,  slaves,  let  the  swift-footed  camels  be  pre 
pared!" 

Koro  the  King  raises  his  slender  eyebrows :  "For 
what  purpose,  O  Vizier?" 

"That  your  Majesty  may  the  sooner  follow  after 
Dagmar  the  Queen!" 

"Speak,  Akeenah !"  pleads  Koro  the  King.  And 
Akeenah,  briefly,  speaks : 

"Alas,  it  is  true,  O  Son  of  the  Moon  and  Stars, 
that  I  do  not  love  you.  For  it  is  not  given  us  to  love 
or  not  to  love,  or,  loving,  to  love  always  one  and  no 
other.  And  if  I  loved  you  yesterday,  who  knows  that 
I  should  love  you  to-day?  And  if  to-morrow  brought 
love  to  my  heart  for  you,  who  knows  that  it  would 
not  die  with  the  morrow's  sun?  But  my  beauty  is 
yours,  O  King;  for  I  am  your  handmaiden.  You 
may  .cherish  my  loveliness  with  pearls,  or  you  may 
command  your  Eunuchs  to  stain  and  deface  it  for 
ever  with  blood  loosened  from  my  heart.  I  am  yours 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  247 

to  enjoy.  I  am  yours  to  trample  under  foot.  You 
are  the  King." 

"But  soon,  soon,  Akeenah,  I  too  may  be  a  slave 
— the  slave  of  Dagmar  the  Undefeated." 

And  Akeenah,  briefly,  speaks : 

"That  will  be  as  the  Stars  ordain,  Koro  the  King! 
And  it  may  be,  then,  when  you  are  far  from  my  in 
difference,  and  in  chains,  that  I  shall  love  you — a 
little, — but  too  late." 

And  she  turns  on  a  rosy  heel  and  slowly,  with  a 
negligent  aloofness,  mounts  the  long,  straight  stair 
to  the  unseen  terrace. 

Koro,  the  young  King,  his  hump-backed  ministers 
about  him,  watches  her  till  she  has  passed  from  his 
sight. 

A  slave  enters ;  falls  prostrate. 

"The  camels,  the  fleet  camels,  are  made  ready,  O 
King!" 

And  Koro  turns  to  the  Grand  Vizier. 

"This  Dagmar,  now — ?  Did  one  not  say  she  is 
tall — white — massive — with  eyes  like  steel?  Did 
you,  indeed,  not  thus  describe  her?" 

"Not  I,  your  Majesty.  Yet,  verily,  it  is  so.  She 
is  a  woman  like  no  other." 

"Ah — ?  The  phrase  lingers  in  my  mind,"  mur 
murs  Koro  the  King.  "It  intrigues  me,  strangely. 
Tall — white — massive — with  eyes  like  steel.  ...  I 
have  never  seen  a  woman  like  that.  .  .  .  Come,  my 
lords!  The  camels,  the  fleet  camels,  are  waiting!" 

But  as  he  goes  out,  with  his  bewildered  ministers, 
to  pursue  the  suite  of  Dagmar  the  Undefeated,  he 
stops  a  moment  at  the  foot  of  the  long  straight  stair 
and  gazes  upward.  And  the  curtain  falls. 


248  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

Rather  subtle,  perhaps,  that  ending  —  and  not, 
theatrically  speaking,  very  effective.  It  leaves  one 
at  a  loss  to  know  precisely  what  the  half-starved, 
pock-marked  young  poet  intended — does  it  not? 


XXV 

Akeenah,  the  slave-girl,  then,  was  the  part  in 
which  Lilia  Chenoworth  was  presently  to  brave  the 
scrutiny  of  an  audience  as  sophisticated,  as  mali 
ciously  critical,  as  any  in  the  civilized  world.  And  it 
is  surely  obvious  that  Akeenah's  silent  entrance,  fol 
lowing  upon  the  ecstatic  verses  in  praise  of  her 
beauty  as  chanted  by  Koro  the  King,  and  followed, 
too,  by  the  slow,  silent  descent  of  the  long  stairway 
past  those  ebon  statues,  the  Eunuchs,  could  hardly 
have  been  made  more  trying  to  the  nerves  of  a  mor 
tal  actor.  If  the  prolonged  silent  entrance  did  not 
carry,  did  not  create  for  its  spectators  just  that 
mood  of  tranced  admiration  which  the  pock-marked 
young  poet  intended,  then  Akeenah  and  the  play 
crumbled  together  and  no  later  touch  would  save 
them. 

Mondory  knew  this  only  too  well.  He  hoped 
that  Lilia  did  not.  It  was  a  cruel  test  for  the  child 
— and  must  prove  so  for  him.  Watching  from  the 
wings,  he  knew  that  he  would  be  in  agony  from  the 
moment  Lilia  placed  her  bared  feet  on  the  top  step, 
high  above  him,  until  she  had  reached  the  bottom 
step  and  had  stretched  her  hand  out  to  the  King. 
He  knew  that  that  descent  would  seem  to  him  ten 
years  long;  he  would  be  old  and  tired  when  it  was 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  249 

completed.  What  a  crazy  thing  for  him  to  entrust 
so  much  to  an  inexperienced  girl !  Was  he  losing  his 
wits — his  grip  on  the  hard  fact  that  only  the  utmost 
technical  assurance,  coupled  with  the  most  striking 
beauty,  would  suffice  for  such  an  ordeal!  Fabrice, 
after  all,  might  have  managed  it  acceptably  enough 
— in  her  fashion.  .  .  .  Well !  It  was  too  late  now 
for  regrets.  But  his  company,  his  beloved  company, 
had  never,  never  once,  produced  a  fiasco;  by  which 
he  understood  not  a  popular  failure,  but  a  failure  in 
discriminating  art.  Ah ! — what  torture ! 

When  the  call-bell  for  the  third  play  of  the 
evening  sounded,  Mondory,  to  his  own  dark  amaze 
ment,  found  himself  wedged  into  a  shadowy  corner 
behind  a  set-piece  from  one  of  the  earlier  plays.  He 
had  no  recollection  of  going  there;  the  past  min 
utes  were  blank  to  him.  It  was  as  if  he  had  crawled 
apart  like  a  wounded  dog — crawled  under  a  bush. 
It  was  absurd.  .  .  .  Yet  there  he  absurdly  stood, 
and  wiped  great  sliding  drops  of  sweat  from  his 
jowls,  from  behind  his  ears.  That  poor  child — the 
whole  thing  was  impossible !  He  ought  to  dash  out 
at  once,  issue  prompt  orders,  forbid  that  the  curtain 
be  lifted.  .  .  .  Some  explanation  could  be  made, 
of  course.  .  .  .  That  was  always  possible.  .  .  . 
But,  name  of  God,  he  had  never  suffered  like  this ! 

Although  he  was  not  to  appear  in  person  on  the 
stage,  Mondory — the  great  Mondory — was  a  victim 
of  stage-fright  in  its  most  hideous  form. 

He  was  aware  that  he  ought  to  go  at  once  to 
Lilians  dressing-room  and  speak  an  encouraging  word 
to  her;  but  he  no  longer  felt  capable  of  uttering 
it. 


250  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

The  actors  were  gathering  in  the  wings  now;  he 
could  hear  them  talking  in  subdued  and,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  troubled  tones.  This  new  play,  no  one  better 
knew,  was  considered  a  doubtful  experiment  by  all 
his  associates — for  he  always  thought  of  them  as 
co-laborers,  fellow-artists,  although  he  ruled  and 
over-ruled  them  like  the  creative  autocrat  he  was. 
And  suddenly  he  longed  to  rush  out  through  the 
stage-door  into  the  night — but  that  woujd  not  do. 
So  he  began  to  count  instead:  slowly,  very  slowly, 
through  his  mind  one  dragging  number  followed  on 
the  heels  of  another.  He  counted  up  to  one  hun 
dred — two  hundred — two  hundred  and  sixteen.  .  .  . 
Then  a  hot  flash  swept  through  him!  They  were 
playing  now;  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  it.  His 
knees  would  just  support  him  as  he  backed  out  from 
his  undignified  retreat,  worked  his  way  round  back 
stage,  crept  silently  to  his  station  in  the  wings.  An 
under-electrician,  in  charge  of  a  baby-spot  which 
from  this  point  commanded  the  high,  steep  stair 
way,  moved  aside  for  his  revered  chief  with  an 
exaggerated  respect. 

uThe  first  view — superb — "  he  murmured.  uOne 
felt  the  effect — out  there.  .  .  ." 

Mondory  made  no  reply.  He  leaned  heavily 
against  the  inner  casing  of  the  proscenium  arch. 
What  was  it  all  about  ?  That  idiot,  Souchon ! — why 
was  he  shrieking  so!  He  had  told  the  fool  he  was 
too  loud : — several  times,  at  rehearsal,  he  had  taken 
pains  to  remonstrate.  .  .  .  These  actors!  .  .  . 
Nom  de  Dieu! — what  a  metier  was  his.  Making 
bricks  without  straw — always — always.  .  .  .  Drole 
de  vie  que — !  .  .  . 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  251 

And  everything  swam  before  him.  It  was  several 
moments  before  he  was  able  to  concentrate  his  atten 
tion,  follow  the  progress  of  the  play — 


XXVI 

Once  again  the  technique  of  the  film  will  prove 
convenient:  a  "flash-back"  is  indicated. 

Lilia,  in  her  dressing-room,  had  burst  out  laugh 
ing  before  Mme.  d' Albert  and  had  then  seated  her 
self,  relaxed  and  tranquil,  to  wait  for  her  call.  It 
was  but  a  moment  after  that  someone  knocked  at 
the  door.  Mme.  d' Albert  smiled,  knowingly,  and 
answered  the  summons.  She  was  prepared  to  slip 
away,  leave  the  field  without  a  word;  for  she  had 
no  doubt  the  Great  Man  in  person  was  waiting.  .  .  . 
However,  she  found  at  the  door  an  arresting,  though 
rather  oddly  clothed,  young  man,  who  by  his  prim 
speech  and  weighted  accent  at  once  revealed  his 
transatlantic  origin.  He  was  wearing  a  dinner 
jacket,  but  over  it  a  long  ulster  of  rough,  light  brown 
tweed,  and  he  carried  a  brown,  soft-brimmed  felt 
hat  in  his  hand.  On  hearing  his  voice  Lilia  sprang 
up.  "Dunster!"  she  cried:  "Oh,  my  dear — bless 
you  a  second  time !  I  have  twenty  minutes  left  to 
accumulate  nerves — but  now  they'll  seem  nothing, 
they  won't  exist.  Only — how  in  the  world  did  you 
get  by  the  Ogre  at  the  Gate  ?" 

"The  stage  door — ?  I  bribed  him."  He  had 
answered  abruptly,  almost  harshly,  and  Lilia  felt 


252  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

at  once  that  he  was  restraining  a  profound  agitation. 
What  could  have  caused  it?  What  could  have  in 
duced  him  to  come  to  her  thus,  at  such  a  time  ?  But 
her  first  impulse,  under  the  devouring  eyes  of  Mme. 
d'Albert,  was  to  protect  him  from  himself.  She 
laughed  delightedly. 

"I  wonder  if  the  Prince  in  the  Fairy  Book 
ever  did  that — to  Dragons  and  things?  I'm  sure 
he  did,  but  was  far  too  romantic  to  mention  it!" 
Then  she  seized  Dunster's  hand  and  drew  him  past 
the  astounded  Mme.  d' Albert  into  the  small,  close 
dressing-room.  It  was  not  there  she  would  have 
chosen  to  receive  him,  in  that  too  intimate  disorder. 
The  room  was  not  attractive.  The  flat  sweet  smell 
of  cosmetics  was  heavy  upon  it. 

Mme.  d'Albert,  in  the  doorway,  was  massively 
staring.  Not  having  a  word  of  English,  she  was 
the  more  piqued  by  this  unexpected  intrusion.  Lilia 
concealed  her  annoyance.  She  introduced  Dunster 
as  an  old  friend  from  America,  and  quickly  added, 
"I  must  have  ten  minutes'  chat  with  him,  dear  ma- 
dame.  I  know  you'll  forgive  me — and  I  know  you'll 
see  that  we're  not  interrupted.  I  have  so  many 
questions  to  ask.  .  .  ." 

Mme.  d'Albert,  for  all  reply,  rolled  eyes  and 
spread  fat  hands,  but  her  implications  were  unmis 
takable,  and  Dunster's  whole  nervous  system  re 
sented  them  with  a  hot  sudden  flush.  There  was 
no  need  for  words.  Lilia  sought  his  eyes,  and  re 
sponded  quietly: 

"No,  she  doesn't  understand — and  no  one  could 
make  her  understand.  That's  the  pity  of  it.  So 
it's  useless  to  explain."  And  she  dismissed  Mme. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  253 

cT Albert  to  the  corridor  with  a  nod,  a  bright  smile, 
and  herself  firmly  closed  the  door  upon  her.  She  was 
resolute  not  to  show  Dunster  that  his  agitation,  now 
openly  manifest,  was  wakening  her  own.  She  turned 
to  him  with  a  smile,  half  deprecating,  half  appealing. 

"Dear — ?  Please.  ...  I  hate  it  as  much  as  you 
do — more.  But  you  shouldn't  have  come  to  me  now 
if —  I  mean,  I'm  not  even  meant  to  be  looked  at — 
close."  She  managed  a  little  half-hearted  shrug. 
"I'm  just  an  impressionist  daub  from  here.  I'm  not 
in  the  picture  yet.  You'll  like  me  better — out  there. 
— Oh,  but  will  you  like  me  out  there  ?  Will — they?" 

"They!'"  he  groaned.  "It's  because  of  them 
I'm  here  now!"  For  an  instant  he  hesitated,  avert 
ing  his  eyes  from  Lilia,  struggling  to  master  the 
indescribable  tumult  of  body  and  mind  which  pos 
sessed  him.  He  had  come  with  a  single  purpose. 
He  had  little  time  to  accomplish  it.  Nothing — not 
even  the  disappointment,  the  pain,  he  was  bringing 
her — must  turn  him  aside. 

He  lifted  his  eyes  miserably  to  hers. 

"Lilia  .  .  .  you  can't  play  here  to-night."  The 
bald  statement  came  from  him  simply,  crudely,  with 
a  sincerity  that  was  final. 

He  had  expected — well,  he  knew  not  what :  some 
thing,  surely,  it  would  be  difficult  to  bear  the  seeing 
of,  the  hearing  of!  What  he  could  never  have 
expected  was  the  sudden  glow,  the  splendor  in  Lilia's 
eyes.  A  vital  wave  of  strength,  courage,  joy,  seemed 
to  sweep  visibly  through  her  slight  body  and  lift 
her  to  him : 

"Brave — !  ...  I  watched  your  eyes  suffer  for 
me.  .  .  .  oh,  it's  not  just  a  blind,  ugly  thing  in 


254  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

us,  is  it — is  it!  It  was,  at  first.  We  hated  each 
other  for  it.  That's  why  we  couldn't  find  each 
other.  .  .  .  We  have  now.  We've  grown.  I've 
found  you!9  She  laughed  out,  not  loudly,  but  on 
a  clear  note  of  happy  confidence.  Her  arms  tight 
ened  about  his  neck.  And  then  she  was  away  from 
him,  even  as  she  had  come,  lightly,  swiftly,  before 
he  knew.  .  .  .  "Now  tell  me,'*  she  said,  "what 
are  you  trying  to  save  me  from  ?  What  is  it  you're 
afraid  of — for  me?  I'm  not  afraid." 

He  could  tell  her  now.  But  the  minutes  were 
passing.  Could  he  speak  out  clearly,  briefly  enough 
— convince  her  at  once  that  she  must  on  no  account 
appear  before  them — them!  "Don't  question  me," 
he  pleaded.  "I'll  give  you  facts.  They  are  facts. 
— Lilia,  they're  all  against  you — out  there;  they 
mean  mischief.  You  know  Mondory's  public,  I 
suppose;  I  don't.  But  for  a  new  play,  it  seems,  it's 
a  special  group — critics,  theatrical  folk,  writers.  .  .  . 
They  all  know  each  other.  Why,  during  the  inter 
missions,  in  that  wonderful  room  with  the  carved 
panels,  it's  like  a  brilliant  reception!" 

Lilia's  face  grew  grave  now,  but  with  no  trace  of 
faltering;  and  Dunster  caught  wonderingly  the  im 
pression  of  a  radiance  all  about  her,  at  once  soft 
and  vivid — the  afterglow  of  her  exaltation. 

"You  see,  I'm  here  alone :  you  asked  that.  So  after 
the  first  play  I  followed  the  crowd — half  the  audi 
ence,  at  least — and  I  happened  to  meet  two  friends. 
One  of  them's  a  French  biologist,  Henri  Mockel. 
The  other's  Frank  Oilman — yes,  your  Dr.  Gilman; 
he  came  over  on  the  boat  with  me.  No,  don't — don't 
question  me!  I'll  tell  you  later.  Or  Frank  will. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  255 

He  wants  to  see  you — "  (But  why  couldn't  he  get 
it  said  and  over!  It  was  like  being  in  a  nightmare 
house — breaking  through  door  after  door.  .  .  .  ) 
He  plunged  on : 

"Frank  was  terribly  upset.  He  simply  grabbed 
my  arm  and  told  me  there  was  trouble  brewing.  You 
see,  I  was  a  little  late  getting  here;  the  taxi — no 
matter.  I  just  missed  an  announcement  of  Mile, 
de  Silva's  illness — that  she'd  be  unable  to  appear 
and  her  part  would  be  taken  by  Mile.  Chenoworth. 
Frank  says  the  instant  it  was  made  there  was  an 
angry  sort  of  buzz  all  round  him.  He  hadn't  known 
you  were  going  to  play,  and  the  way  the  house  took 
the  announcement  scared  him.  He  explained  things 
to  Mockel — his  special  interest  in  you ;  he  may  have 
mentioned  you  to  him  before.  So  Mockel  began 
gathering  news  for  him  as  soon  as  the  first  curtain 
fell.  I  ran  into  them  shortly  after.  .  .  . 

"Lilia,  there's  no  doubt  of  it!  Mockel  says  the 
house  is  full  of  personal  friends  of  Mile,  de  Silva; 
and  she's  managed  somehow  to  spread  among  them 
that  you're  a  young  upstart  from  God  knows  where 
— rather  pretty,  with  a  touch  of  talent,  but  without 
any  training  or  finesse  whatever;  and  with  no  more 
right  to  a  place  in  this  company  than  a  girl  from 
the  streets.  And  your  not  being  French  seems  to 
count  against  you.  ...  As  for  Mondory,  you're 
supposed  to  have  infatuated  him — to  be  making  an 
utter  fool  of  him;  and  you  tricked  him  somehow 
into  a  quarrel  with  Fabrice  (that's  what  Mockel 
calls  her)  so  you  could  coax  him  to  give  you  her 
role  tonight.  Mockel  says  there's  a  small  inner 
clique  of  hers  deliberately  organizing  the  house 


256  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

against  you.  The  point  of  view  is,  that  the  director 
of  a  theatre  like  this  is  entitled  to  his  private  caprices, 
but  that  the  moment  he  lets  them  interfere  with  his 
artistic  conscience  he  insults  all  that's  finest  in  the 
intellectual  life  of  Paris.  That's  how  Mockel  puts 
it — and  it  strikes  me  as  weird !  But  he  knows  them 
— the  mood  they're  in;  I  can  see  that;  and  they 
won't  even  give  you  a  fighting  chance.  .  .  .  Do  you 
hear  me,  Lilia?  You  can't  do  it.  No  one  could. 
You've  got  to  rely  on  me  now  and  do  as  I  tell  you. 
I  want  you  to  leave  with  me  as  soon  as  possible. 
I'll  see  Mondory.  He  can  call  off  the  play,  even 
if  it  is  the  last  moment — or  find  a  substitute — or  go 
to  the  devil !  What  he  can't  do  is  to  expose  you  to 
— them!  Damn  them!  .  .  .  I'll  be  back  for  you 
right  away.  .  .  ." 

But  Lilia  was  at  the  door.  .  .  . 

Whenever,  in  later  years,  this  moment  returned 
to  Dunster,  as  it  so  often  and  poignantly  did,  always 
with  it  revived  his  faith  that  then,  first,  he  had 
known  reality.  The  supreme  intuition.  .  .  .  Not 
that  which  accepts  and  submits,  but  that  which  re 
fuses  and  transcends.  Romance,  religion,  poetry — 
these  are  names.  It  is  the  invincible  spark  in  man. 
Now  clogged,  faint;  now  blinding  in  some  swift 
happy  release  of  power:  it  is  never  extinct.  The 
granite  of  human  dullness  cannot  smother  it,  nor  the 
seven  seas  of  human  misery  blot  it  out.  Everywhere 
it  remains;  it  kindles.  It  is  kindling  the  holocaust 
of  Time.  .  .  .  Well,  such  rhetoric,  with  its  poor 
straining  to  break  through  speech,  might  come  in  its 
season!  For  the  revelation  itself  there  was  only 
Lilia : — one  slight,  negligible  female  of  an  imperfect, 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  257 

though  dominant,  animal  species  which  has  for  some 
generations  bred,  huckstered  and  died  on  its  neg 
ligible  pill  of  dust.  One  young  female  among  mil 
lions,  with  such  brief  attractions  for  the  occasional 
male  as  the  blind  chemistry  of  nature  has  let  happen 
here  on  earth:  a  young  female,  too,  preposterously 
smeared  with  tinted  grease,  "gotten  up"  in  the  sem 
blance  of  a  "slave  girl"  for  some  quaint  mortal 
mummery  called  a  "play!"  Only  Lilia,  in  short, — 
and  something  that  gleamed  out  from  her  on  Dun- 
ster  and  rebuked  him  and  humbled  him.  Yet  she  was 
gentleness  itself;  and  what  she  said  was  simple,  al 
most  apologetic: 

"Dear,  I'm  sorry.  You  may  be  right.  I  can't 
reason  with  you.  .  .  .  And  I  shan't  like  it:  only, 
I'm  afraid  I  shall,  in  a  way.  I  mean  there's  a  sort 
of  thrill  in  it  ...  not  just  a  thrill,  exactly;  deeper. 
I  couldn't  go  on  with  life — go  on  living  at  all — if 
I  didn't  see  this  through,  somehow.  I'd  feel  dowdy 
— all  horrid  and  second  rate ;  inside,  you  know.  It's 
not  being  sensible,  of  course  .  .  .  and  I  do  trust 
you.  I  know  what  you're  trying  to  spare  me.  I 
love  you  for  trying.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  am  sorry  not  to 
do  what  you  ask  me  to!  But  I  can't  help  it.  It 
isn't  just  being  stubborn  or  conceited  or  thinking  that 
I — but  I  can't  tell  you  what  it  is.  It's  a  sort  of — 
compulsion.  There  are  things  I  have  to  do  my 
own  stupid  way,  just  to  feel  right,  or — I'm  done  for. 
Please  stand  by  me — ?" 

Stand  by  her !  His  weakness  by  her  strength  I  It 
was  laughable  ...  no;  it  was  torture.  God  in 
heaven,  if  she  should  guess  even  the  half  of  his 
cowardice — !  Would  she  then,  because  of  his  help- 


258  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

less  need  of  her,  still  stand  by  him?  For  it  was  clear 
enough  now — his  life.  All  his  days  he  had  been 
twisting,  turning,  skulking  to  right  and  left,  stepping 
(as  he  hoped,  adroitly)  to  this  side  and  that.  Where 
did  his  personal  advantage  lie?  Over  yonder? 
Well,  he  would  get  there,  somehow,  in  time ;  it  would 
take  time,  though.  He  must  first  manoeuvre  a  little 
.  .  .  there  were  several  possible  dangers  (quite  pos 
sible  discomforts,  at  least)  just  ahead. — He  could 
not  reply  to  her.  He  was  stunned  and  futile.  He 
had  an  odd  momentary  sense  of  her  hovering  far 
above  him  .  .  .  that  Princess  of  the  Tower,  in  his 
old  book — rel-zel — what  was  her  name !  And  there 
was  no  twist  or  turn  now  that  would  reach  her; 
there  was  no  climbing  up  to  her,  unless  she  should 
take  compassion  on  his  great  need  of  her.  .  .  . 

Dunster  put  out  his  hand,  timidly^ — he  knew  not 
why — and  touched  Lilians  hair. 

She  caught  his  hand  in  both  hers;  her  eyes  filled 
with  tears.  "Poor  boy!  it  will  be  so  much  worse 
for  you,  out  there,  if  they  are  really  ugly  to  me.  .  .  . 
I  shan't  mind  it — much.  I'll  be  fighting  them.  .  .  ." 

A  bell  sounded  from  the  corridor,  a  sharp  metallic 
trill;  it  was  just  outside  the  dressing-room  door. 
Lilia  responded  to  its  brief  clamor  with  instant  ani 
mation,  with  the  gayest,  most  heart-breaking  little 
shrug  of  defiance.  "Via,  m'sieu.  The  first  call.  In 
five  minutes  the  curtain  rises — and  I  must  beg  you 
to  leave  my  dressing-room  instantly!" 

She  pressed  Dunster's  hand  tight  against  her 
heart,  slowly  released  it;  and  herself  opened  the 
door. 

Mme.  d' Albert  (as  that  good  woman  explained 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  259 

volubly)  was  at  that  very  moment  raising  her  hand 
to  knock.    Lilia  greeted  her  with  a  smile.  .  .  . 


XXVII 

When  Dunster  found  himself  alone  in  the  closed 
corridor  he  first  started  in  the  direction  of  the  stage- 
door:  then  stopped,  after  an  uncertain  step  or  two, 
with  taut  muscles  and  clenching  hands.  No;  it  was 
impossible.  He  could  not  return  to  his  seat  in  the 
third  row  and  sit  there,  unobtrusively,  during  the 
ordeal  before  them.  For  it  was  their  ordeal  now, 
and  he  must  be  near  Lilia,  yet  not  so  as  to  trouble 
her ;  he  must  watch  her  every  movement,  expression ; 
he  must  be  ready  and  able,  if  need  be,  to  help  her, 
take  some  decisive  action — he  knew  not  what. 

There  was  just  one  thing  to  do,  then ;  he  must  find 
some  post  behind  the  scenes,  some  favorable  corner 
— if  such  a  spot  could  be  supposed  to  exist — where 
he  could  at  once  escape  observation  and  command  a 
view  of  the  stage.  But  how,  in  the  given  state  of 
his  ignorance  concerning  that  highly  organized,  yet 
highly  confusing,  region  "behind,"  he  was  to  make 
his  way  to  this  desired  (if  existent)  spot — well,  that 
was  a  problem,  among  other  problems,  which  he 
dared  not  even  wait  to  envisage. 

For  all  his  ardent  interest  in  the  theatre,  an  in 
terest  he  had  had  chiefly  to  nourish  upon  its  liter 
ature,  Dunster  knew  little  of  the  practical  conduct 
of  a  performance;  the  vague,  dim  world  of  "back 
stage"  still  remained  for  him  (to  his  secret  chagrin) 


260  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

a  region  of  unsatisfied  curiosity,  of  potential  ro 
mance.  As  a  boy  in  Vanesburg,  it  is  true,  he  had 
scraped  acquaintance,  while  fishing  one  day  down 
river,  with  the  stage-carpenter  of  the  local  Opera 
House,  and  had  later  on  more  than  one  occasion 
managed  to  snuff  about  dog-like  at  his  heels  through 
the  chill,  musty,  rope-hung  twilight  behind  the  asbes 
tos  curtain;  but,  being  only  fourteen  and  appropri 
ately  shy,  he  had  never  quite  dared  to  "work"  his 
august  Olympian  (in  shirt  sleeves)  as  he  so  longed  to 
do;  nor  had  the  Olympian,  who  lacked  the  divine 
gift  of  sympathy,  ever  of  his  own  accord  asked  him 
to  "come  round  some  night" — though  Dunster  had 
for  several  months  lived  just  at  the  thrilling  brink 
of  that  supreme  possibility.  Then  his  friend,  the 
carpenter,  was  discharged  for  drunkenness — and  all 
was  over.  .  .  . 

Now,  strangely,  that  world — which  he  had  al 
ways  believed,  in  the  least  humble  of  senses,  would 
be  his  world,  as  it  had  once  been,  however  humbly, 
his  mother's — was  all  about  him;  and  he  was  not 
even  aware  of  it  as  an  experience  in  itself,  an  oppor 
tunity  long  postponed.  He  was  aware  of  nothing 
but  his  purpose.  He  was  an  intruder  here  without 
rights,  but  he  must  assume  his  rights  and  make  good 
his  intrusion.  Above  all,  and  without  delay,  he  must 
discover  the  precise  nook  from  which  he  could  most 
effectively  watch,  and  watch  over,  Lilia ;  and  he  must 
manage  somehow  to  stay  there — even  if  staying 
there  meant  a  shattering  of  every  rule  and  precedent 
of  the  house.  He  was  already  questing  and  thus  far 
had  made  his  way  without  challenge,  though  fol 
lowed  by  more  than  one  surprised  glance  as  he  passed 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  261 

from  the  corridor  into  the  wings,  where  a  group  of 
ten  or  more  apparently  naked  Nubians  stood  whis 
pering  together.  To  avoid  them,  Dunster,  with  as 
casual  an  air  as  he  could  assume,  had  strolled  off 
"up  stage,"  and  now,  to  get  his  bearings,  was  stand 
ing  in  a  space  of  deep  shadow  blocked  out  from  the 
already  lighted  fore-stage,  where  the  actors  would 
soon  be  playing  their  parts,  by  an  unbroken  and 
immensely  high  screen  of  unpainted  canvas,  elab 
orately  reinforced,  propped  and  stayed:  the  reverse 
side  of  Mondory's  daring  terrace-wall.  From  top 
to  bottom  of  this  canvas  wall,  which  was  faintly 
translucent,  cut  the  sharp  dead-black  silhouette  of 
the  solidly  framed  stairway  on  its  further  side ;  and 
Dunster  had  noted  from  the  corridor  door  a  steep 
ladder-like  construction  with  light  hand-rails,  which 
mounted  dizzily  to  a  small  railed-in  platform.  That 
platform,  he  now  made  out,  must  give  access  to  those 
silhouetted  steps  in  whose  shadow  he  briefly  hes 
itated.  That  high-hung  platform  was  evidently  the 
one  entrance  on  this  side  of  the  stage  into  the 
"box-set"  (a  term  of  doubtful  accuracy  for  an  "ex 
terior,"  however  masked  from  the  wings)  which 
so  completely  shut  him  out  from  the  rather  shal 
low  space,  between  the  canvas  wall  and  the  curtain, 
reserved  for  the  acted  play.  He  must  cross,  then, 
the  full  breadth  of  the  canvas  wall,  to  the  opposite 
wings. 

While  he  had  thus  been  studying  his  ground  more 
minutes  had  slipped  by  him  than  he  was  aware  of, 
and  he  had  barely  turned  to  tread  cautiously  over 
when  he  was  startled  and  rooted  again  by  the  timed, 
slow  thuds  of  three  clumping,  portentous  blows,  as 


262  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

of  a  wooden  maul  on  a  butcher's  block — a  signal  tra 
ditional  in  France  from  at  least  the  days  of  Moliere. 
These  were  immediately  followed  by  a  pervasive, 
indefinable  whirring,  and  the  faint  translucence  on 
the  vast  canvas  screen  strengthened  perceptibly.  A 
strong  draught  of  cold  air  swirled  about  him,  bring 
ing  with  it  a  composite  mustiness  which  momentarily 
caught  him  back  to  boyhood  and  Vanesburg — to  the 
chill,  rope-hung  twilight  behind  the  asbestos  curtain 
of  the  old  Opera  House.  (So  homogeneous  is  this 
special  world!)  Then  from  just  beyond  the  canvas 
screen  came  voices,  declaiming — or  rather,  it  seemed 
to  him,  shouting,  with  an  exaggerated  emphasis  both 
false  and  absurd:  the  inevitable  first  impression  of 
a  novice  taken,  during  the  progress  of  a  play,  "be 
hind."  Dunster's  throat  tightened;  his  spine  regis 
tered  that  authentic,  unduplicated  quaver  which  only, 
for  its  born  votaries,  the  lifting — or  withdrawing — 
curtain  of  a  theatre  can  give.  .  .  . 

But  he  must  now  make  haste.  Moving  cautiously, 
however,  for  there  were  several  looming  obstruc 
tions  ahead,  Dunster  crossed  on  the  balls  of  his  feet, 
and  as  he  did  so  the  figure  of  a  man  drew  out  from 
some  cave  of  darkness  and  moved  shadow-like  be 
fore  him.  There  was,  for  Dunster,  a  sense  of  the 
furtive  here;  and  he  was  the  more  surprised,  when 
some  hidden  source  of  light  suddenly  defined  this 
figure,  to  recognize  the  remembered  bulk  of  M. 
Mondory.  Dunster  stopped  in  his  tracks.  M.  Mon- 
dory,  he  felt,  might  very  well  not  be  in  a  mood  to 
suffer  an  intruder  gladly.  But  his  next  and  happier 
intuition  was  to  pursue  him,  and  he  was  just  at  his 
heels  when  Mondory  squeezed  forward  between  the 


LILIA    CHENOWORTH  263 

under-electrician  and  the  inner  casing  of  the  pro 
scenium. 

It  would  just  be  possible,  Dunster  saw,  to  push 
through  after  the  great  man — who  was  doubtless  also 
an  abruptly  difficult  man — and  so  place  himself  close 
beside  him;  but  this  would  be  only  to  risk  what  he 
had  already  gained  by  following  him — a  position 
quite  as  favorable  as  he  could  have  hoped.  By 
standing  a  little  back  from  a  short  ape-like  figure  in 
charge  of  some  lighting  apparatus,  Dunster  was  him 
self  in  shadow,  impeding  no  one;  and — which  was 
after  all  the  essential — he  commanded  a  fairly  com 
prehensive  view  of  the  stage.  Moreover,  the  arch 
way  which  provided  the  one  entrance  to  the  stage 
on  this  side  was  shut  off  from  him  by  an  elbow  of 
scenery,  part  of  the  "backing"  of  the  arch,  and  this 
concealed  him  from  the  actors  making  their  exits, 
or  waiting  for  their  entrance  cues  in  the  wings.  The 
ape-like  creature  at  the  light  had,  it  is  true,  felt  his 
presence  and  cast  a  doubtful  backward  eye  on  him; 
but  had  then  dismissed  him — as  doubtless  one  more 
satellite  of  the  Master,  duly  drawn  in  to  a  tolerated 
orbit,  and  so  not  to  be  disturbed.  As  for  M.  Mon- 
dory,  his  attention  was  elsewhere.  .  .  . 

Dunster's  first  glance  had  brought  him  the  tem 
porary,  slight  relief  of  Lilia's  mere  absence  from 
the  stage.  He  had  reached  his  present  post  in  a 
state  of  almost  suffocating  apprehension,  and  it  was 
only  by  a  supreme  effort  that  he  had  forced  himself 
to  take  in  the  scene  before  him.  Lilia  was  not 
there  .  .  .  and  for  an  instant  he  had  closed  his 
eyes.  When  he  had  again  looked  outward  his  will 
had  triumphed;  the  mutiny  of  his  nerves  was  dom- 


264  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

inated;  the  captain,  at  last  was  in  control.  But 
those  twin  pen-strokes  between  his  brows  had  never 
been  deeper,  more  sharply  defined.  .  .  . 

And  his  eyes  now — as  if  independently  of  his  mind 
— were  aware  of  beauty:  a  beauty  which,  even  at 
this  close  range  and  from  an  unfortunate  angle,  his 
anxieties  could  not  wholly  deny  him;  for  it  was  the 
beauty  of  an  achieved  simplicity,  attained  by  the 
cunningest  omissions,  by  the  mere  leaving  out  of 
much  that  a  less  inspired  director  might  easily  have 
considered  essential.  It  was  a  beauty,  in  the  setting, 
of  broad  masses,  plain  surfaces,  suggestively  com 
posed  into  a  whole  whose  proportions,  and  all 
of  whose  values  for  the  imagination,  were  seized 
by  the  eye  directly,  as  at  a  stroke.  And  in  the 
costumes  it  was  a  beauty  of  quiet  line,  but  of 
daring,  complex  color — a  stir  of  color  which  in 
itself  created,  through  underharmonies  and  sharp 
surface  dissonances,  the  very  atmosphere,  at  once 
troubling  and  enervating,  of  the  palace  gardens  of 
Koro  the  King.  .  .  .  Yet  of  the  play  itself  Dunster 
knew  nothing;  Lilia  had  not  mentioned  it;  and  though 
the  strangeness  of  her  make-up  had  puzzled  him, 
as  had  the  naked  Nubians  in  the  wings,  there  had 
been  no  opportunity  for  questions.  And  now  the 
dialogue  escaped  him;  he  caught  but  a  chance  word 
or  so  at  best;  his  ear  was  untrained — his  preoccupa 
tion  too  absorbing.  It  did  not  matter.  The  eye 
crosses  all  borders  and  knows  a  universal  language. 
Thanks  to  the  evoking  magic  of  Mondory,  the  flow 
ing  pantomime  of  the  actors,  he  was  aware  of  beauty 
— and  perhaps  more  calmed  and  heartened  by  it  than 
he  could  possibly  have  been  aware. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  265 

And  still  Lilia  was  not  on  the  stage.  Her  en 
trance  came  late,  then.  He  was  glad  of  that.  No 
doubt  his  concern  for  her  had  led  him  to  exaggerate 
the  importance  of  her  part.  Why  he  could  not  im 
agine — he  saw  now,  of  course,  that  it  was  absurd, — 
but  he  had  somehow  persuaded  himself  that  she  was 
to  attempt  a  leading  role !  Three  seconds  of  com 
mon  sense  might  have  saved  him  that  anxiety.  Mon- 
dory  wasn't  an  idiot — he  was  a  director  of  genius. 
Whatever  his  feeling  for  Lilia,  however  highly  he 
thought  of  her,  he  would  never  have  assigned  her 
the  impossible.  He  wouldn't  have  risked  too  much, 
either  for  her  or  for  himself.  Indeed,  it  might 
well  be — 

In  short,  what  Dunster  now  began  desperately  to 
hope  was  that  the  charm  of  the  play  itself — a  charm 
which  had  penetrated  even  to  him  in  his  wretched 
distraction — might,  in  a  sense,  fight  Lilia's  battle 
for  her  and  carry  her  through  at  least  to  safety. 
If  only  her  entrance  were  long  enough  delayed  to 
establish  the  mood  of  enchantment,  the  very  spell 
of  the  play — !  But  wasn't  it  even  now  established? 

From  where  he  stood  no  part  of  the  audience  was 
visible,  but  none  the  less  he  was  feeling  its  presence 
now  as  a  responsive  entity — a  tuned  and  vibrating 
instrument.  Its  silences  were  surely  not  hostile,  for 
they  were  absolute,  broken  only  from  time  to  time 
by  a  wordless  murmur — just  the  stirring  of  a  little 
breeze  over  still  waters;  the  very  breath  of  appreci 
ation.  Rarely,  too,  came  a  subdued  ripple  of  laugh 
ter  at  some  fortunate  sally,  some  mot  which  had 
always  just  escaped  Dunster — though  he  thrilled  to 
it  tardily,  not  for  itself,  but  in  sympathetic  response 


266  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

to  them!  It  was  difficult  to  feel  that  an  audience 
yielding  itself  so  graciously  could  be  nursing  a  griev 
ance.  Yet  he  was  rather  puzzled  than  reassured.  .  .  . 

One  certainty  came  to  him,  however.  As  the 
moments  passed  he  more  and  more  felt  how  nat 
urally,  how  inevitably,  with  what  instinctive  delight, 
Lilia  must  have  entered — during  long  hours  of  study 
and  rehearsal — into  the  uncompromisingly  artistic 
life  of  Mondory's  theatre  and  of  this  little  play. 
Here  indeed  was  her  world !  A  world  of  no  conces 
sions,  a  world  apart;  existing  solely  in  and  for  that 
beauty  which  is  the  radiant  effluence,  the  breath  and 
being,  of  the  free  creative  spirit  of  man.  Lilians 
world.  .  .  .  He  had  often  guessed  at  it — blindly 
enough.  Now,  when  he  might  least  have  expected 
clearness,  it  all  came  clear;  and  for  the  first  time 
he  understood  that  felt  strangeness  in  Lilia,  the  touch 
of  aloofness  which  kept  her  always,  in  spite  of  her 
almost  startling  vividness  of  feeling  and  directness 
of  action,  a  little  detached  from  life — or  rather, 
from  the  common  conception  of  what  things  in  life 
are  prizes  to  be  struggled  for,  intrigued  for,  seized 
and  held  at  all  costs,  no  matter  how  ruthlessly  or 
meanly.  It  was  a  revelation.  But  was  it  not,  he 
asked  himself,  a  revelation  that  carried  with  it  a 
naked  sword  and  placed  it  between  them?  For 
Lilia's  world  was  not  yet  his;  was  perhaps  even 
barred  to  him,  since  he  had  never  before  truly  per 
ceived  it;  had  never  before  honestly,  and  now  almost 
despairingly,  desired  to  enter  it.  He  had  been  too 
long,  too  consciously,  too  persistently,  wanting  (and 
scheming  for) — other  things.  .  .  . 

The    hushed    waters — out    there — were    stirred 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  267 

again;  there  was  even  a  light  riffle  of  applause;  and 
Dunster's  mind  was  caught  back  from  its  moment  of 
wandering.  The  spell  of  the  play  was  still  potent, 
then;  was  intact.  They  were  not  barbarians — out 
there.  Surely,  when  Lilia  came,  they  would  at  least 
wait — suspend  judgment.  .  .  .  They  would  at  least 
let  her  speak.  .  .  .  That  was  all  he  asked.  He 
knew  it  impossible  that  Lilia  herself  should  break 
this  spell.  Exquisite  as  the  play  was,  her  beauty 
would  accord  with  it,  would  bring  to  it — overtones. 
If  only — God!  if  only,  when  she  first  stepped  out  to 
them,  this  fine-spun  web  were  not  torn,  this  bright 
bubble  pricked,  by  some  swift  gesture  of  malice  which 
she  could  neither  foresee  nor  control ! 

Dunster  dug  his  nails  deep  into  the  palms  of  his 
hands.  All  the  intolerable,  suffocating  weight  of  his 
anxiety  rolled  back  upon  him.  His  eyes  rested  dully, 
without  vision,  upon  Koro,  the  young  King,  who  now 
— languidly  graceful — stood  by  the  lily  pool  among 
his  hump-backed  ministers.  Yet  he  was  being  su 
perbly  rendered,  Koro !  He  brought  his  slim,  indif 
ferent  hands  soundlessly  together  and  Dunster  heard 
him  utter  the  name — "Akeenah"  ...  A  crouching 
slave  turned  at  the  name  and  swiftly,  on  all  fours, 
leaped  up  that  interminable  straight  stair,  lined  with 
those  motionless  black-men.  .  .  .  Dunster  pressed 
forward,  staring  above  the  very  shoulder  of  the 
intent,  ape-like  creature  of  the  light.  He  could  see 
now  the  small  entrance-platform  at  the  top  of  the 
stair.  On  reaching  this  the  slave  stood  up ;  his  atti 
tude  became  negligent.  There  was  no  hurry  now. 
He  had  made  his  exit.  But  he  remained  on  the  high 
platform,  waiting  apparently  for  someone  who  was 


268  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

mounting  to  it  from  the  wings  below.  Meanwhile, 
Koro  the  King  was  declaiming  verses  —  exquisite 
verses — in  praise  of  Akeenah:  and  no  one  in  all 
Paris  reads  verse  more  alluringly  than  Paul  Fri- 
bourg;  that  is  understood.  These  were  his  golden 
moments,  and  he  was  making  the  most  of  them.  But 
Dunster  had  forgotten  his  existence.  His  eyes  were 
straining  upward,  fixed  on  that  high-hung  platform ; 
and  he  was  not  alone.  Mondory's  eyes,  too,  were 
staring  upward.  ...  And  neither  Mondory,  the 
great  director,  nor  Dunster,  the  obscure  teacher  of 
English,  was  conscious  of  a  burst  of  applause,  a 
genuine  tribute  of  enthusiasm  which  swept  over  the 
house.  Paul  Fribourg  was  inimitable;  there  was 
really  nobody  like  him;  he  had  scored  again.  .  .  . 


XXVIII 

There  was  probably  no  one  in  the  theatre,  not 
even  the  moderately  gratified  Paul  Fribourg,  more 
attentive  to  that  spontaneous  tribute  of  applause 
than  Lilia.  It  was,  she  felt,  a  good  omen ;  correctly 
timed  by  her,  it  would  serve  to  cover  a  somewhat 
awkward  entrance,  against  which,  as  she  knew, 
Fabrice  had  vainly  protested  —  those  first  rather 
giddy  steps  downward.  Young  Raoul  Dubosc,  the 
messenger-slave,  who  was  madly  in  love  with  Lilia 
— and  with  several  other  young  ladies  in  other  com 
panies,  had  remained  beside  her  on  the  platform  to 
encourage  her,  to  wish  her  every  success.  As  the 
applause  began  he  seized  her  hand.  "It's  going 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  269 

splendidly,"  he  whispered.  "Nobody  thought  it 
would — but  the  old  Magician.  Trust  him!  You'll 
have  a  triumph,  Lilia — and  Fabrice  will  die  of  it. 
Try  not  to  forget  me  to-morrow — when  you're  fa 
mous!"  He  pressed  her  hand,  hard,  and  Lilia  gave 
him  the  very  smile  he  had  hoped  for.  A  nice  boy, 
Raoul — but  she  was  listening,  listening.  .  .  .  The 
applause  slowly  diminished.  She  snatched  her  hand 
sharply  from  Raoul,  not  meaning  to  rebuke  him  (in 
deed,  she  was  no  longer  aware  of  him) .  She  stepped 
forward  to  the  edge  of  the  platform.  The  demon 
stration  was  all  but  over.  .  .  . 

It  was  her  instinct  just  to  anticipate  its  dying 
away;  and  she  was  right — although  she  knew  it  a 
theatrical  crime  to  break  in  even  by  a  split  second 
upon  another  actor's  "round."  But  this  moment 
might  prove  critical  for  her,  and  hence  for  the  play. 
It  was  to  the  play  itself  that  she  felt  her  responsi 
bility — not  to  Paul  Fribourg.  And  if  Dunster's 
information  was  correct,  if  there  was  the  least  prob 
ability  the  house  would  turn  ugly  when  she  appeared 
before  it  and  try  in  some  way  to  punish  Mondory, 
through  her,  then  she  must  do  everything  possible 
to  disarm  that  mistaken  malice.  Moreover,  that 
wretched  young  poet  with  his  white,  pock-marked 
face — !  Unstrung  by  privation  and  by  the  im 
minence  of  what  still  seemed  to  him  a  fantastic  hope, 
he  had  fled  from  Paris  down  to  his  old  home,  St. 
Remy,  far  in  the  south.  .  .  .  He  had  made  a  beau 
tiful  thing,  and  she  would  fight  for  it;  she  would 
fight  for  him !  It  would  be  difficult  for — them — out 
there — to  break  from  applause  into  immediate  hos 
tility.  She  must  manage  an  inconspicuous  entrance; 


270  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

take  them  unaware —  As  she  stepped  from  the  plat 
form  she  was  conscious  again  of  that  strange  sense 
of  duality  which  sometimes  came  to  her,  and  always 
with  a  rapt  elation.  She  seemed  rather  to  be  floating 
beside  her  body,  to  be  directing  it  from  without,  than 
to  be  trammeled  by  it.  Nor  was  it  the  eyes  of  the 
house  that  she  felt  now — fastened  upon  her.  Akeenah 
would  do  for — them;  a  slave-girl.  But  there  was  a 
greater  drama  than  Akeenah's  afoot — a  more  thrill 
ing  role.  "Lilia  Chenoworth"  .  .  .  and  no  one 
else  could  play  that  part.  It  was  hers  to  create — 
hers.  And  what  an  audience !  What  a  magnificent 
scene — to  play! 

Koro  the  King  was  awaiting  Akeenah  now  at  the 
foot  of  the  stair;  he  had  summoned  Akeenah,  and 
Akeenah  must  descend  to  him.  But  even  here,  in 
these  sheltered  gardens,  the  day  was  warm,  and 
Akeenah  need  not  hurry.  Soon  enough  he  would 
touch  her  hand  with  his  long,  clinging,  pulseless  fin 
gers  ;  but  one  must  not  shiver,  even  so  very  little,  at 
the  touch  of  a  King.  .  .  .  Let  Akeenah  loiter,  then, 
step  by  step.  Let  Akeenah  fancy  she  was  going  else 
where — down  into  that  dusty  courtyard,  perhaps, 
which  a  certain  balcony  of  the  women's  quarters 
overlooked:  the  courtyard  of  the  camel-drivers. 
Surely  that  youngest  of  the  drivers — the  boy  with 
the  wild  eyes,  the  blue-black  shag  of  hair,  the  skin 
like  a  ripe  olive  dipped  in  gold-dust — would  be  wait 
ing  for  her !  .  .  .  And  thus  Lilia  loitered  down  the 
long  stair,  past  the  motionless  Eunuchs,  the  aloofness 
and  seduction  of  her  languor  drawn  tantalizingly 
about  her  like  a  veil.  There  was  a  dream  in  her  eyes, 
and  the  slight  smile  on  her  lips  was  born  of  that 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  271 

dream.  It  was  evidently  not  for  Koro  the  King,  her 
smile — ! 

Lilia's  descent  of  the  long,  straight  stair  was  a 
triumph  of  the  intuitive  imagination.  There  was  no 
escaping  its  Tightness.  She  was  simply  recreating  in 
its  integrity  the  young  pock-marked  poet's  private — 
but  no  longer  incommunicable — dream. 

Nevertheless,  as  she  neared  the  stair's  foot  the 
attempted  demonstration  against  her  began.  A  cer 
tain  group  toward  the  back  of  the  house  broke  out 
in  shrill  sifflets,  mingled  with  a  tentative  groan  or 
two,  and  one  sharply  launched,  satirical  "J'aime 
son  jeu — quoif  Jeux  d'enfance!"  followed  by  a 
woman's  high,  forced  whinny  of  laughter.  But 
there  were  instant  cries  of  protest  and  indignation 
and  a  gathering  indefinable  hum  from  every  part  of 
the  house,  as  of  swarming  bees.  .  .  .  Lilia  saw  Paul 
Fribourg's  handsome,  self-satisfied  face  change  sud 
denly  before  her  to  the  stiff  mask  of  panic;  his  hand 
as  he  raised  it  to  invite  her  own  was  shaking  gro 
tesquely.  He  started  to  lead  her  across  to  his  hump 
backed  ministers.  As  he  did  so,  the  hissing  was 
sharply  renewed,  and  as  sharply  protested.  The  au 
dience  began  to  seethe  like  a  cauldron.  Fribourg — 
completely  unnerved — stopped  dead.  It  was  a  deso 
lating  moment.  To  break  the  rhythm  of  the  per 
formance,  Lilia  knew,  might  be  to  forfeit  every 
thing;  and  yet  it  would  be  impossible  to  play  at  all  if 
the  house,  because  of  her,  divided  and  lost  itself  in 
the  excitement  of  its  own  emotions.  Lilia  snatched 
her  hand  from  Paul  Fribourg's  and  walked  forward 
to  the  edge  of  the  stage.  There  were  no  footlights, 
the  lighting  was  contrived  from  above;  she  could 


272  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

look  into  the  very  eyes  of  the  audience.  She  stood 
quietly  before  them,  her  hands  clasped  behind  her — 
and  presently  there  was  astounded  silence.  Then  she 
spoke  to  them,  with  simplicity,  with  dignity,  almost 
with  detachment;  but  the  careful  restraint  of  her 
words  was  in  the  most  piquant  contrast  to  the  spark 
ling  intensity  of  life  flung  out  like  a  challenge — a 
glove  in  the  face  of  all  Paris — from  those  vivid 
green-blue  eyes,  from  that  tossed  flame  of  hair. 

"Mesdames  et  messieurs  —  whether  I  please  or 
displease  you  is  of  small  importance.  My  role,  hap 
pily  for  you — and  for  me,  it  seems — is  brief.  If  I 
plead  with  you,  it  is  on  behalf  of  our  play,  and  of  the 
poet  who  has  sacrificed  so  much  to  create  it.  He  is 
young,  he  is  poor,  he  is  ill — too  ill  to  be  present  to 
night.  But  he,  at  least,  is  worthy  of  you;  he  can 
dream  exquisite  dreams  for  you;  he  has  the  secret 
of  —  beauty.  And  if  beauty  is  not  respected  in 
France — above  all,  here,  in  this  theatre " 

The  house  rose  to  her.  Her  words  were  drowned 
in  their  cheering,  their  frantic  applause.  .  .  .  Dun- 
ster  found  himself,  momentarily,  in  full  sight  of  the 
audience,  wedged  tight  between  the  famous  director, 
Mondory,  and  the  ape-like  under-electrician.  Mon- 
dory  had  seized  his  hand  and  was  wringing  it  with 
violence.  They  were  all  a  little  mad — but  Lilia. 
Dunster  saw  her  turn  easily  from  them,  with  that 
slight,  remembered  shrug  of  hers,  and  give  her  hand 
again  to  the  stupefied  Paul  Fribourg;  but  he  could  not 
hear  her  sharp,  whispered  command  to  him — "Play, 
idiot!  .  .  .begin  playing  .  .  .  lead  me  over  .  .  . 
We  must  play — !" 

Paul  Fribourg  mechanically  obeyed  her — led  her 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  273 

across  to  his  ministers,  several  of  whom  had  ceased 
to  remember  that  they  were  hump-backed  and  old. 
It  was  fortunate,  both  because  of  its  halting  delivery 
and  the  dangerous  matter  of  it,  that  the  first  resumed 
speech  of  Koro  the  King  went  for  nothing  in  the  sub 
siding  tumult  of  the  house.  But  Lilia  shuddered, 
and  for  the  first  time  her  heart  sank  within  her,  as 
he  read  the  lines.  Their  "sensitiveness" — their  pat 
absurdity  in  the  given  circumstances — cut  through 
her  confidence  like  a  knife.  If  they  should  begin  to 
laugh,  out  there — !  .  .  .  However,  the  still  shaken 
Fribourg  rather  mumbled  than  spoke : 

"Behold  my  true  conqueror.  .  .  .  Queen  Dagmar 
may  imperil  my  empire — which  is  nothing.  But 
Akeenah  imperils  my  self-esteem — which  is  every 
thing  ...  I  love  her — and  she  does  not  love  me. 
Is  it  not  so,  Akeenah — ?" 

Ah — !  That  was  over — safely.  And  Akeenah 
responded  with  her  serene  aloofness :  "Am  I  not  your 
Majesty's  slave?"  The  far-away  dream  had  re 
turned  to  her  eyes,  and  the  mystery  of  that  slight, 
distant  smile  (so  evidently  not  for  Koro  the  King) 
again  played,  elusive  as  light  on  leaf-flecked  water, 
about  her  lips.  The  house  was  hushing  itself  rest 
lessly  to  attention.  Everything  would  depend  now, 
if  the  rhythm,  the  spell,  of  this  day-dream  were  to 
be  recreated,  upon  Paul  Fribourg's  instant  recovery 
of  his  role.  Possibly  some  interior  echo  from  that 
unheard  line  of  his — "But  Akeenah  imperils  my  self- 
esteem" — had  so  shocked  his  vanity  as  to  sweep 
away,  at  a  breath,  all  the  inhibitions  of  his  panic. 
His  taut  muscles  relaxed,  the  ironic  melancholy  of 


274  LILIA    CHENOWORTH 

his  fine  voice  did  not  fail  him;  he  resumed  at  once  all 
the  charm  and  authority  of  his  studied  art. 

But  the  moments  leading  up  to  Lilia's  last — her 
one  long  and  important — speech  were  far  too  brief. 
The  house  had  quieted  itself,  indeed;  but  was  still 
too  acutely  conscious  of  its  repressed  corporate  ex 
citement.  As  she  began  the  speech  Lilia  felt  this 
self-consciousness  of  the  audience  like  an  impeding 
veil;  she  could  not  reach  freely  out  to  them;  but  she 
felt  also  that  she  could  at  least  win  through.  For 
they  were  uwith"  her  now — out  there;  but  rather  in 
a  sporting  sense,  as  partisan  backers,  than  in  the  one 
sense  that  makes  inspired  playing  possible.  An  au 
dience  must  yield  itself  to  a  performer  unconsciously, 
as  a  lulled  instrument  to  be  played  upon;  if  it  is  se 
cretly  humming  with  independently  stirred  vibrations 
no  actor,  however  gifted  or  experienced,  can  master 
it.  Ah — no  matter !  She  would  do  what  she  could. 
If  the  play  were  no  longer  in  danger  as  she  left  the 
stage,  she  would  be  content. 

The  delicate  cadence  of  the  lines  drew  from  her 
a  pure,  unforced  music: 

"Alas,  it  is  true,  O  Son  of  the  Moon  and  Stars, 
that  I  do  not  love  you.  For  it  is  not  given  us  to  love 
or  not  to  love,  or,  loving,  to  love  always  one  and  no 

other.  And  if  I  loved  you  yesterday,  who  knows 
» 

Then  a  grotesque,  an  incredible  thing  happened. 
One  of  the  King's  Eunuchs,  one  of  that  line  of  gigan 
tic  black  men  ranged,  with  their  bright  scimitars, 
along  the  high,  straight  stairway  to  the  unseen  ter 
race  above,  suddenly,  enormously — sneezed.  .  .  . 
He  was  the  second  Eunuch  below  the  topmost — the 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  275 

last  as  the  eye  mounted  whose  entire  figure  was  vis 
ible  from  the  orchestra  chairs;  and  not  only  did  he 
sneeze  thus  once,  but  it  was  immediately  clear,  from 
his  agonized  expression,  that  he  must  soon  sneeze 
again: — only,  he  did  not.  .  .  .  With  contorted 
shoulders,  writhen  forehead,  with  one  black  paw 
clutched  tightly  across  his  nose  and  mouth,  he  waited 
— waited — then  ever  so  tentatively  relaxed,  resum 
ing  his  former  fixed  pose ;  immobile — silent.  It  was 
more  than  flesh  and  blood,  already  at  fever  pitch, 
could  stand.  The  audience  rocked  with  hysterical 
laughter;  wildly,  obscenely.  .  .  .  The  play,  Lilia, 
were  blotted  from  existence. 

(Are  they  not,  in  truth,  blotted  from  the  sympa 
thies,  the  very  consciousness,  of  you — who  merely 
read  of  this  "mirth-provoking  incident"?  Yet  you 
may  not  even  plead  the  emotional  contagion  of  the 
crowd,  of  those  shaken  ones  set  shoulder  to  shoulder 
about  you.  You — are  presumably  alone.  And  it 
may  just  be  possible  to  ask  you  to  reflect  a  little — on 
tragedy  and  comedy — and  why  what  is  irresistibly 
absurd  is  never  for  the  philosopher — if  such  a  being 
exists — quite  so  funny  as  it  seems.  For  laughter  is 
but  a  mechanism  of  our  weakness;  an  escape.  We 
escape  by  it  from  the  intolerable.  It  is  intolerable 
that  yonder  man,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  should 
resemble  a  gorilla ;  so  we  laugh — and  sink  helplessly 
back  into  chaos.  It  is  intolerable  that  a  statesman 
should  be  a  rascal,  or  a  saint  prove  a  hypocrite,  or 
that  a  fat  man  should  fall  in  love;  so  we  laugh — 
and  escape.  But  above  all  is  it  intolerable  that  what 
is  noble  and  exquisite  in  life  should  lie  always,  in 


276  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

some  sense,  at  the  mercy  of  what  is  ignoble,  or  ma 
licious,  or  merely  banal !  This  baffles,  confounds  us; 
the  universe  should  not  be  made  so;  we  cannot  bear 
it — and  we  escape.  That  is,  we  laugh — O  we  laugh 
consumedly! — until  the  tears  roll  down  our  cheeks 
and  we  are  in  pain, — the  full  circle  of  folly  ending  as 
it  began.  .  .  .  Ha !  ha !  laugh  and  grow  fat,  my 
children — above  all,  fat-headed !  There  lies  the  ulti 
mate  back-door  from  humanity;  the  perfect  escape.) 

For  an  instant  Lilia  stood  dazed,  staring  outward, 
her  eyes  childlike,  incredulous.  For  an  instant  only 
.  .  .  It  was  over,  then —  But  no,  it  was  not  over! 
She  had  still  one  part  left  to  play:  her  own.  Her 
hands  clenched  at  her  sides;  she  caught  at  her  breath; 
and  she  finished  her  lines — flinging  every  word  out 
clearly  against  that  torturing  clamor.  But  the  day 
dream  was  dead;  a  beautiful  thing  had  been  broken, 
destroyed.  .  .  .  As  she  turned  slowly  and  walked 
from  Koro  the  King  to  the  foot  of  the  stair,  her 
eyes  went  blind  with  tears,  and  she  felt  a  crushing 
fatigue,  an  immense  lassitude,  descend  upon  her  and 
fold  itself  about  her.  It  was  as  if  someone  had 
thrown  a  cape  of  lead  across  her  slight  shoulders. 
It  weighed  her  down.  The  thought  of  mounting  that 
steep,  endless  flight  was  an  agony;  but  she  straight 
ened  her  shoulders;  she  set  her  feet  to  the  stairs.  If- 
she  could  only  reach  that  high,  distant  platform, 
somehow — and  sink  down  on  it — and  rest  a  moment 
— rest.  ...  As  she  neared  her  exit  the  full  enthu 
siasm  of  the  house,  roused  again  by  her  pathetic 
gameness  and  no  longer  to  be  restrained,  swept  up 
to  her  and  swirled  about  her.  Lilia  was  conscious  of 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  277 

it  only  as  an  inexplicable  confusion.  She  had  reached 
the  high  platform  now;  she  was  away  from  them — 
at  last.  But  she  was  curiously  weak  and  giddy;  the 
prospect  of  that  ladder-like  descent  to  the  wings 
daunted  her.  The  cape  of  lead  still  clasped  her,  fold 
upon  fold.  It  was  all  going  to  be — rather  difficult. 
What  was  wrong  with  her — with  her  head?  She 
had  never  felt  just  like  this  before — or  but  once  .  .  . 
that  time  in  Naples,  with  her  father.  .  .  .  Her  head 
had  no  top  to  it;  she  put  up  her  hand,  vaguely;  there 
was  a  queer  emptiness  above  her  eyes.  .  .  .  She  be 
gan  the  steep  descent  to  the  wings  almost  blindly, 
clinging  to  the  hand-rails  with  desperation.  .  .  . 
Someone  was  calling  up  to  her —  Her  father — ? 
Ah,  no.  It  was  the  Prince — bless  him.  He  hadn't 
failed  her,  then!  And  sometimes  she  had  feared, 
just  a  little,  he  might  be  like — like  whom?  It  didn't 
matter  now,  since  he'd  been  fighting  for  her.  Only, 
she  couldn't  get  down  to  him,  so  far ; — it  wasn't  pos 
sible.  .  .  .  And  why  did  he  keep  calling  to  her — ? 
If  they  were  ever — ever  to  meet — he  must  climb  up 
to  her  .  .  .  only  .  .  .  that  was  the  worst  of  these 
towers  .  .  .  tower  chambers  .  .  .  page  227  .  .  . 
The  Prince  was  coming,  though  .  .  .  climbing  .  .  . 
oh,  quickly,  quickly — !  She  must  help  him!  .  .  . 
But  who — who  was  it — she  must  help — ? 

She  no  longer  knew.    Yet  she  had  thrown  out  her 
hands  to  him  as  all  went  dark.    She  pitched  forward. 


BOOK  III 


Extract  from  a  letter  sent  by  Dr.  Franklin  P.  Gil- 
man  to  Miss  Betty  Oilman,  his  sister, 
a  Senior  at  Alden. 

Dunster  Thorpe  is  on  his  feet  again — physically. 
His  broken  arm  was  nothing,  of  course;  but  the 
knee  was  badly  wrenched — and  knee-joints  are  al 
most  always  the  devil.  Mondory — who  is  more  of 
a  he-man  than  I  supposed  an  actor  could  be,  every 
way — has  insisted,  all  through,  on  keeping  Dunster 
down  there  at  that  queer  joint  of  his  beside  his 
damned  theatre.  Personally,  I  don't  see  how  Dun 
ster  can  stand  the  place.  Every  time  I  go  to  see  him, 
and  have  to  cross  the  courtyard  right  in  front  of  the 
lobby,  it  makes  me  feel  ill.  But  Dunster  and  Mon 
dory  have  become  great  friends,  considering  the  dif 
ference  in  their  ages.  Besides,  I'm  discovering  you 
never  can  tell  how  people  with  any  kind  of  artistic 
streak  in  them  will  take  things.  They're  a  queer  lot 
— queerer  even,  I  mean,  than  their  reputation  for  be 
ing  queer;  but  I'm  beginning  to  like  them  a  good  deal 
— some  of  them.  For  the  kid's  sake,  I  guess. 

That  isn't  a  reference  to  Dunster,  naturally.  He 
hasn't  got  it,  quite  —  something,  but  God  knows 
what  to  call  it,  that  Lilia  had,  and  that  Mondory  has 
a  trace  of  too,  I  think.  But  I'm  stronger  for  Dun- 

279 


280  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

ster  right  along,  as  a  person.  He's  taken  this  whole 
thing — exceptionally  well.  Damn  language,  when 
you  want  to  spread  yourself  and  can't!  I  mean  he's 
been — great.  The  real  thing.  But  you've  reason 
to  know  how  I  feel  about  him,  if  you  read  my  let 
ters.  As  you  don't  always  answer  them  very 
promptly,  I  can't  tell. 

It  will  be  just  six  weeks  to-morrow  since  the  kid's 
death. 

Bimps,  old  lady — it's  funny.  You  know  I  try  to 
be  honest  with  myself  and  with  you.  And  there's  no 
doubt  I  fell  mighty  hard  for  the  kid,  that  week  in 
New  York  when  I  looked  after  her  and  that  rotten 
old  wreck,  her  mother.  I  was  crazy  about  her  — 
thought  I  was,  anyway — I  guess  it  comes  to  the  same 
thing.  But  I  didn't  know  anything  about  her;  I 
hadn't  even  caught  a  glimpse  of  her — then.  I'm 
only  just  beginning  to  find  out  what  she  really  was 
— through  Mondory  and  Dunster  mostly — now  that 
she's  gone.  Well,  if  she' d  lived — but  the  fact  is  I 
never  can  think  of  her  as  not  alive.  But  if  she 
had  lived,  I  mean — I'd  have  lost  out  anyway  to 
Dunster;  and  I  suppose  I'd  have  hated  him  and  been 
sore  at  her  and  cut  up  rough  for  a  time.  And  then, 
after  awhile,  I'd  have  gotten  down  to  work,  and  the 
whole  thing  would  have  worn  of,  and  likely  enough 
I'd  have  fallen  just  as  hard  or  harder  for  some  other 
girl,  more  of  my  own  stripe.  And  of  course,  as  it 
is,  I,  probably  shall  do  just  that,  some  day.  It's  the 
way  we  critters  are  made.  But  I'm  not  sticking  to 
my  point,  if  I  have  one. 

I  guess  what  I'm  trying  to  say  is,  that  the  kid's 
death — all  the  circumstances  of  it — all  that  followed 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  281 

— my  being  the  first  doctor  to  get  back  there  to  her 
and  Dunster — the  newspaper  sensation,  filed  with 
the  slimiest  mixture  of  hysterics  and  scandal — and 
then  her  fishy  father  coming  on  like  the  Grand  Mo 
gul,  smearing  us  all  with  crocodile  tears,  and  bear 
ing  her  poor  broken  little  body  of  in  a  kind  of  infer 
nal  triumph — well,  the  whole  miserable,  senseless, 
pitiful  mess 

It  was  the  strongest  jolt  of  my  life,  that's  all. 

It's  upset  and  shaken  round  a  lot  of  things  inside 
of  me.  Sometimes  I  think  my  brain  cells  have  an 
entirely  different  arrangement. 

I'm  not  heart-broken  or  anything  foolish  like  it. 
I'm  not  disgusted  with  life,  not  nearly  so  much  so  as 
I  ought  to  be.  I  don't  feel  a  bit  like  quitting — in  fact, 
I'm  all  right.  I've  been  getting  down  to  some  real 
work  with  Mockel  lately  and  enjoying  the  grind 
again. 

But  I'm  a  lot  more  willing  to  grant,  than  I  was, 
that  there  are  a  few  things — such  as  the  kid  lived  by 
— we're  never  going  to  be  able  to  find  formulas  for 
in  our  laboratories. 

I  shan't  forget  Lilia.  When  I'm  married  and 
have  children — and  a  long  string  of  fancy  letters 
after  my  name  in  Who's  Who — and  at  least  one  of 
my  feet  in  the  grave,  at  that — she'll  be  right  with 
me,  in  a  sort  of  way.  And  if  the  good  wife  doesn't 
like  it,  she'll  jusP  have  to  lump  it — if  she  ever  finds 
out  about  it;  which  she  won't  —  unless  I  develop 
senile  complexes  and  talk  in  my  sleep.  And  you  can 
tell  the  dear  little  predestined  woman  so  for  me,  if 
the  occasion  ever  arises — with  my  compliments! 

Dunster  insists  he's  going  to  sail  home  next  week* 


282  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

He  wants  to  get  to  work  again,  too.  There's  a  play 
of  his  some  manager  in  New  York  has  taken  an  in 
terest  in,  and  I  supposed  of  course  he  was  going  back 
to  try  to  get  it  put  on.  I've  been  urging  him  to 
tackle  the  manager  hard  and  land  him.  But  Dun- 
ster  tells  me  he's  lost  all  interest  in  the  thing;  simply 
says  it's  no  good — and  shuts  up  like  a  clam.  Doesn't 
even  want  to  talk  about  it.  He  rather  thinks  he'll 
go  directly  back  to  his  old  job  at  Alden — if  you'll 
have  him.  But  that's  a  passing  phase,  I  hope.  He's 
far  too  good  for  you,  anyway — just  as  the  kid  was. 
Still,  as  I  say,  you  never  can  tell  what  people  with 
an  artistic  streak  will  do.  Certain  things  hit  them — 
differently,  and  then  they're  stubborn  as  hell. 

Sorry  I  swear  so  much  in  my  letters.  I  know  you 
don't  like  it.  But  it's  nothing  to  my  usual  language, 
Bimps.  So  let's  hope  you  don't  up  and  marry  a  par 
son  on  me,  'cause  he  might  come  between  us — and 
then  I'd  have  to  do  murder.  I'm  even  learning  to 
swear  pretty  comfortably  in  French.  Give  me  credit 
for  that  much  industry,  at  any  rate! — And  remem 
ber  me  to  Prexy,  some  time,  if  you  ever  run  into  him 
alone.  I  was  strong  for  him,  old  lady — oh,  well, 
naturally  I  was.  He  was  so  keen  about  the  kid 


II 

Dunster  Thorpe  to  Ruth  Harrod :  written  on  ship 
board,  while  bound  for  New  York. 
DEAR  RUTH — 

I'm  in  no  mood  on  this  ship  for  making  conversa 
tion  to  strangers;  my  knee  is  still  too  uncertain  for 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  283 

much  walking  about  on  ram-slippery  decks;  and  I 
can't  read  bad  novels  which  don't  interest  me — or 
good  ones  either;  they  seem  to  interest  me  even  less 
— twenty-four  hours  a  day.  May  I  talk  to  you? 

All  that  I've  been  able  to  write  you,  or  your  father, 
up  to  now,  has  come  from  the  surface.  I  haven't 
dared  at  any  time  to  strike  in.  I've  given  you  the 
outside  of  everything.  Now,  selfishly,  I  want  to  give 
you  the  inside.  I  don't  know  why  I  should  presume 
to  ask  you  to  help  me  straighten  out  my  mind  again, 
except  that  I  know  how  under  standingly  you  loved 
Lilia.  That  is,  I  know  I  can  count  on  you — and  I 
haven't  the  strength  to  resist  the  temptation.  You 
were  Lilia' s  nearest  friend,  and  I.  quite  frankly  and 
shamelessly  now  want  you  to  be  mine.  I  think  Lilia 
would  want  that,  too. 

But  some  of  the  straightening-out  work  is  done  al 
ready — the  worst  of  it.  I  began  writing  you,  on  im 
pulse,  four  days  ago,  and  hour  after  hour  during 
those  four  days  I  tumbled  every  pent-up  thing  in  me 
out  on  paper,  letting  them  come  without  order  or 
reason — just  as  they  would.  As  a  result,  I  got  some 
sleep  last  night — honest  sleep — for  the  first  time 
since  sailing;  and  to-day  I'm  at  least  moderately 
clear-headed.  And  all  that  chaotic  stuff  has  gone  into 
a  waste-basket — where  it  belongs.  This  letter  will 
be  different.  For  one  thing,  though  it  may  be  much 
too  long,  it  won{t  be  interminable. 

The  first  week  or  two  after  Lilia' s  death  I  could 
think  of  nothing — when  I  could  think  at  all — but  the 
absolutely  meaningless  cruelty  and  defeat  of  it. 
What  maddened  me  was  the  fact  that  her  death  was 


284  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

sheer  accident;  it  might  just  as  easily  not  have  hap 
pened.  It  seems  to  me  that  when  a  death  is  inevi 
table,  however  much  we  may  suffer  because  of  it,  we 
are  at  least  not  affronted  by  it — made  sick  and 
ashamed  at  heart  by  the  very  spectacle  of  the  uni 
verse  we  live  in.  The  universe  then,  at  least,  doesn't 
seem  to  leer  at  us  with  the  awful  face  of  a  congenital 
idiot. 

You  see,  Lilia  had  really  won  out.  I  keep  hoping 
she  realized  that;  but  one  can't  be  sure.  I  had  rushed 
around  back-stage  with  Mondory  to  tell  her  so. 
When  we  got  to  the  steps  on  the  other  side,  she  had 
managed  more  than  half  the  descent  to  the  wings,  but 
we  saw  at  once  there  was  something  wrong  and  called 
to  her  to  stay  where  she  was — and  I  started  right  up 
for  her.  I  had  almost  reached  her,  too,  when  she 
fainted  dead  of.  She  was  clinging  to  both  the  hand 
rails  at  the  time,  and,  steep  as  they  were,  if  she  had 
simply  sunk  down  on  the  steps  I  could  have  saved  her 
from  falling.  But  just  as  she  dropped,  before  I  could 
quite  get  to  her,  she  flung  her  arms  out  and  pitched 
straight  forward  against  me,  and  we  were  carried 
down  together. — Well,  even  so,  she  might  have  been 
slightly  injured,  as  I  was;  or  she  might  have  been 
seriously  injured,  and  yet  not  have  been  killed.  When 
a  person  faints  every  muscle  relaxes,  and  that's  some 
thing  of  a  safeguard  in  itself.  Then,  too,  I  was  par 
tially  able  to  break  her  fall;  and  Mondory,  a  big 
man  physically  as  well  as  every  other  way,  was  at  the 
foot  of  the  steps  and  didn't  hesitate  to  throw  his  full 
weight  under  us  both  in  an  effort  to  protect  Lilia.  It 
simply  need  not  have  happened;  all  the  probabilities 
were  against  it.  It  happened,  though.  And  not  to 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  285 

me,  or  to  Mondory,  who  was  only  shaken  and 
bruised — but  to  her. 

Forgive  me  for  paining  you  again  with  all  this. 
But  it's  just  from  all  this  that  I've  had  to  start — and 
try  to  find  my  way  to  the  possibility  of  caring  to  live 
at  all  in  a  world,  a  scheme  of  things,  that  can  cre 
ate  loveliness  with  a  chance  indifference  and  thenf 
with  an  equal  indifference,  let  it  be  destroyed. 

Well,  God  knows  I  haven't  found  my  way  to 
caring  much — yet;  but  I  believe  I'm  going  to  find  it, 
through  Lilia.  I  don't  mean  by  that  I've  any  notion 
she's  leaning  down  toward  me  from  the  gold  bar  of 
some  medieval  painter's  heaven.  And  yet,  in  a  way, 
I  do  mean  pretty  much  that — if  you'll  take  it  all  as 
a  symbol  for  something  we  can't  possibly  reason 
about  or  understand.  We  have  to  think  in  images, 
using  the  stuff  our  senses  bring  us;  and  all  that  our 
senses  know  is  earth — earth  and  the  stars.  We  can't 
help  our  limitations;  but  neither  can  I  help,  now,  a 
conviction  that  they  really  are  "limitations."  The 
real  Bible,  the  true  book  of  God,  is  sealed  to  us; 
written  in  a  language  we  haven't  yet  learned  to  de 
cipher.  But  we  shall  learn;  we  must. 

It  all  comes  with  me,  finally,  to  this:  Lilia' s  death 
wasn't  the  ending  of  her  story ;  so  it  couldn't  possibly 
be  the  ending  of  mine.  And  even  if  I  were  forced 
to  admit  (which  I'm  not)  that  when  Lilia  pitched 
forward  from  those  steps  all  the  beauty  of  her,  that 
clear  flame  in  her,  vanished  at  a  breath — I  should 
still  sayy  Lilia's  story  isn't  over.  For  even  so,  in 
what  sense  has  she  vanished  for  you — or  for  me? 
She  is  as  real  to  us  now,  when  we  think  of  her,  as 
when  we  might  have  put  out  our  hands  to  touch  her. 


286  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

She's  far  more  real  to  me  now,  more  in  all  things 
a  part  of  my  life,  than  she  was  when  we  last  talked 
about  her  together  in  New  York. 

But  I'm  in  no  mood  for  concessions.  It  isn't  only 
in  our  fallible  memories,  or  through  her  influence  on 
our  uncertain  lives,  that  Lilia's  story  remains  unfin 
ished.  Lilia — "is."  /  know  little  more  than  that, 
and  nothing  more  surely. 

There's  another,  less  comforting,  conviction  has 
come  to  me,  too. 

If  Lilia  had  lived,  she  would  have  grown  beyond 
me,  and  I  should  ultimately  have  lost  her. 

There  were  some  lines  in  the  part  she  was  playing 
that  night  which  I  can't  get  out  of  my  head.  I  keep 
hearing  them,  exactly  as  she  gave  them,  over  and 
over — "For  it  is  not  given  us  to  love  or  not  to  love, 
or,  loving,  to  love  always  one  and  no  other.  And  if 

I  loved  you  yesterday,  who  knows "  That's  a 

fair  translation  of  them.  I've  translated  the  whole 
play  from  Mondory's  prompt  copy.  I  want  to  see  if 
I  can't  get  it  done  somewhere  at  home.  But  Mon- 
dory  shrugs  his  shoulders  over  that.  tfThere's  no 
money  in  it,"  he  says. 

Of  course,  why  Lilia  should  have  loved  me  at  all 
— and  I  say  it  with  no  false  humbleness — /  can't  pos 
sibly  imagine.  It  isn't  a  clap-trap  phrase  when  I  ad 
mit  I  was  unworthy  of  her.  I  am  unworthy  of 
her.  She  was  always — quite  literally — above  me. 
She  lived  wholly  by  instinct  in  a  world  of  ideal  values. 
She  made  no  effort  to  do  so,  had  no  theories  about 
it;  it  was  her  natural  home.  It  isn't  mine,  and  may 
never  be.  But  it  may  partly  become  so,  simply  be- 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  287 

cause  I'm  too  lonely  now,  in  my  own  over-crowded 
world,  without  her. 

There's  some  old  fairy  story  that  keeps  vaguely 
buzzing  round  me  nowadays — just  the  dim  impres 
sion  of  it.  I  can't  get  it  back  distinctly,  but  it  seems 
to  fit  in — well,  to  everything.  A  Princess  in  a  tower 
— and  her  lover  far  below,  earth-chained.  Then  she 
loosens  the  bright  ladder  of  her  hair  to  him,  and  he 
begins  to  climb. — Yes,  it  must  have  been  painful  for 
the  Princess,  and  difficult  for  the  lover;  but  don't 
smile!  Children  accept  such  things  because  there  is 
"magic"  in  them.  Just  as  I  accept  this  old  story 
somehow,  as  a  kind  of  prophetic  dream,  because 
there  was  magic  in  her — . 

Mondory  felt  that  magic,  believed  in  it — as  I  do. 
All  artists  are  children.  It's  because  there's  still  a 
child  in  me,  somewhere,  that  I  begin  to  hope.  Some 
day  I  may  even  find  the  artist  in  myself — and  begin 
to  climb. 

I  wish  you  could  know  Mondory.  You  wouldn't 
like  him  at  first.  He's  a  vast,  pufy -looking  man,  liv 
ing  behind  a  sort  of  perpetual  disguise,  a  travesty  of 
himself.  Frank  Gilman  couldn't  stand  him,  thought 
him  at  least  half  charlatan,  until  one  night,  when 
Frank  had  come  down  to  see  me,  Mondory  walked 
into  my  bedroom,  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  my  bed, 
and  began  to  talk  about  Lilia.  He  speaks  English 
pretty  fluently,  but  with  a  grotesque  accent.  Well, 
he  said  one  or  two  things  then — just  threw  them  of 
casually  with  his  great  elephantine  shrug — that  I'll 
not  soon  forget.  I  spare  you  his  accent — 

"Dr.    Gilman   is   a   scientist — not?     Alors! — he 


288  LILIA   CHENOWORTH 

thinks  the  soul  is  a  little  chemistry,  hein?  Some  tem 
porary — glue?  Ah,  bonf  But  how  will  he  explain 
for  us  our  little  Lilia?  He  cannot." 

And  later  he  added:  "Ah,  mes  enfants, — beauty 
is  always  defeated;  and  never  defeated.  But  you 
shall  ask  not  me  but  le  bon  Dieu  to  tell  you  why!" 

Always  defeated — and  never  defeated.  That's 
the  paradox  I've  got  to  learn  to  accept  and  live  by, 
Ruth.  "Glory  and  loveliness  have  passed  away" 
Only,  they  can't  pass  away — since  they  are  part  of 
it  all. 

Will  you  please  tell  your  father  for  me  that  I  shall 
stay  in  New  York  two  or  three  days,  not  longer; 
then  return  to  Alden  and — if  he'll  permit  me — take 
up  my  old  duties  there?  He  may  not  care  to  arrange 
this,  or  it  may  no  longer  be  possible.  But  in  any 
case  I  shall  go  up  to  see  him,  and  you — and  my 
dear  Mrs.  Sterrett.  I'm  homesick  for  her,  I  find — 
and  for  my  old  rooms. 

What  I  shall  do  next  year  I  haven't  the  least  idea. 
I  may  go  back  to  Paris  and  apprentice  myself,  so  to 
speak,  to  Mondory.  He  says  he's  willing  to  have 
me — no,  I'll  be  honest;  he  particularly  urged  me  to 
come.  But  I  don't  know.  That's  an  alien  world  for 
me,  and  always  would  be.  I'm  a  provincial  Amer 
ican  at  heart.  I  don't  know — 

/  must  learn  to  care  more  first  what  becomes  of 
me.  I  do  care — and  I  don't.  I  suppose  I'm  more 
tired  than  I  realize,  and,  because  of  that,  more  dis 
couraged.  It  will  all  take  time — 

For  you  see,  I've  discovered  at  last  that  I'm  not 
a  genius  like  Lilia.  I'm  inhibited  in  too  many  ways. 


LILIA   CHENOWORTH  289 

Yet  I  know  one  thing  clearly.  The  one  possible  re 
lease  for  me  now  is  the  release  of  art — of  an  art 
uncompromising  in  its  quest  for  beauty.  If  I  can 
ever  find  strength  and  courage  for  that  quest,  I 
shall  be  at  peace. 


Ill 

Ruth  Harrod  brought  this  letter  to  her  father, 
in  his  study.  Seating  herself  on  the  arm  of  his  chair, 
she  read  it  to  him.  When  she  concluded,  they  were 
both  silent.  Then  Dr.  Harrod  slipped  his  arm  about 
her.  uYes — yes,"  he  mused, — "so  Lilia  was  right 
about  him,  too,  after  all.  .  .  ." 

"Do  you  mind  his  coming  here,  Ruth?"  he  added. 

Ruth  avoided  her  father's  eyes.  But  she  shook 
her  head  slowly,  once,  and  leaned  her  shoulder 
against  his. 

THE  END. 


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